


why can't you hear?

by mr_corbeau



Series: circumnavigate [2]
Category: Loubbie - Fandom, Ocean's 8 (2018)
Genre: F/F, Family, loubbie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-29
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2020-09-29 11:57:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20435630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mr_corbeau/pseuds/mr_corbeau
Summary: “I had a dream that you couldn't hear me screaming…”





	1. .somnium.

**Author's Note:**

> for those, who already knows us – hi there, these three are back as i kinda “promised”, whether you want it or not XDD  
for those, who don’t – please, take into consideration that this is the second story in the series and i would really like to recommend u to read the first one – “why don’t you ask”. simply because u won’t be able to capture what the hell is going out here ;)  
anyway, enjoy!
> 
> p.s.: if u wanna see some skins to the series, u can find me on tumblr – it’s @ whydontyouasklou username (((;

*** November 12th, 2019; 01:00 AM / 4 years 1 month before now…**

“I had a dream that you couldn't hear me screaming…”

It takes her quite an effort to realise where she is, to clear her head, to even her breath and to slow down her galloping pulse to the usual 80 per minute. Inchmeal and with difficulty (gosh, sometimes it feels she is as huge as a blue whale now), she pushes herself up to sit in their bed, one hand running through her hair and another one covering her stomach. This is the first thing she manages to mutter to Debbie, who already sits next to her cross-legged, fully awake, wide opened brown eyes locked on her, searching her face with concern.

“It’s stupid. It’s nothing…,” she totters, shaking her head violently and squeezing her eyelids with force. Both her eyes and cheeks burn and sting from the intricate mixture of salt and water. She must have been crying for real. Not only in a dream. She must have scared the shit out of Debbie. _Fuck_.

Debbie’s palm lies gently on her slouched back, between her shoulder blades, her fingers drawing smooth soothing circles against the prominent reliefs.

“Tell me?,” rather a timid plea than a straight command everyone is used to hear from Deborah Ocean. Even Dashiell knows there’s a point for her when it is better not to mess with her mama. However, Debbie doesn’t apply this ‘I-do-not-tolerate-to-being-disobeyed’ tone to Lou. Not anymore. Not now.

Lou hesitates. Only for several seconds though, until she turns her head to face Debbie and their eyes meet, glimmering like stars in a half-dark room. Normally, Debbie wouldn’t ask her about her nightmares. But it’s been a while since she had one and she knows Debbie really cares. It took her almost twenty-five years longer than Lou to learn how to feel Lou’s fears and pains the same way as Lou can feel hers – deep in her bones, with every nerve ending on her skin, with each little cell of her body. Yeah, what a slowpoke you’ll say. But she has learnt in the end. And that’s how Lou knows she really cares.

“It was… It was a good dream first,” Lou whispers in the dark, taking a shaking breath. Her voice, dropped no less than an octave down, sounds hostile and unrecognizably, scratching the comfortable quietness of their bedroom. Debbie’s hand travels a bit higher, plays with the short hair on the back of her neck. “You were on the beach…You, and Dashiell and… _our_ _boys_. Smiling, laughing, shining in the sunrays. Right in front of me. Just to reach out my hand and I could almost touch,” she breaks into a wide smile, resting her both hands above her belly, reminiscing the image of a dark-haired girl and two golden-haired boys, whose little feet were sinking in the send when trying and failing to catch their sister. The number is their benefit, but the girl is as fast as the wind.

“I was walking out of the ocean. Saltwater, warm and calming, was wrapping itself around my chest with the soft waves. Suddenly, in a blink of an eye, everything changed,” she frowns her eyebrows, shakes her head, tightens embrace around her stomach. “The sun still was shining above the four of you on the beach. But out of blue, there was a huge formidable cloud above _my_ head, the storm started and enormous waves were pulling me back into the water, sticky and viscous as glue. Like merciless giants, clenching my ribs so that there was no place for air. Covering my head. Filling my lungs… I was a grain of sand in the ocean. Getting smaller and smaller. Helpless. I was crying. I was screaming. I was trying to reach you but you couldn’t hear me. None of you… I think I was dying. Debbie… I think I _died_…”

Her chin falls to her chest, the curtain of messy blonde hair and bangs fencing her out from the outside world. Her consciousness is still balancing on the thin sharp line between reality and dream, her brain frantically trying to grab onto the first one. And when the silk fabric of her black pyjamas button-up starts getting wet, she realizes she’s burst into tears again. Yes, it’s stupid. Yes, it’s nothing. But both fear and pain in her dream were _so bloody real_ she can still sense the hair on the back of her head standing up and her blood running cold in her veins.

She feels like the weight on the mattress beside her shifts. Feels as Debbie gets closer, slides sitting behind her, spooning her, their thighs now touching. Feels the tender tug on her shoulders, which pulls her back towards the pillows – so similar and yet so different to the waves that were pulling her into the ocean in her nightmare. Her heart startles into the race again. Paralyzed, her body refuses to move, but she forces it to comply. _This_ is the other _Ocean_. Not right away but gradually, she relaxes when her back is being pressed to Debbie’s chest, Debbie’s arms weightlessly enlacing around her forearms and, palms down, linking together under her breasts – right where her belly turns into a now-pretty-giant-bubble.

She leans back a little, raises her face to meet Debbie’s eyes, to read her thoughts in them. Almost expects and predicts it when Debbie’s lips cover hers, both of them feeling the acerbic taste of her tears on them. Debbie deepens the kiss nevertheless. Doesn’t break it until the second before they can almost die, asphyxiated. One of Debbie’s hands leaves her stomach and moves to her face, thumb caressing the place between her eyebrows, the bridge of her nose, her skull. Then cups her cheek and Lou leans into Debbie’s palm, trembling – not from the cold, on the contrary – from the sensation of love and tenderness Debbie somehow manages to radiate through the touch.

“Baby, it’s not stupid. And it’s not ‘nothing’. But it’s just a dream. A bad dream, which is not gonna happen ever. Cause I’m right here. With you. And I can hear you absolutely well. Every word, every quietest whisper. Every precarious thought, rummaging in your beautiful fair head.” Debbie’s voice is firm and calming, and Lou’s common sense agrees with her, but her heart keeps throwing itself against her ribs anyway.

“I know. I’m just…” Lou starts but cuts herself off in the middle of the sentence. It’s ridiculous how a couple of little creatures, growing inside of you, turn you into an absolutely irrational dork. _Silly_. Silly-silly Lou.

“You just _what,_ Lou?”

“Ugh,” she growls in frustration, nuzzles her face under Debbie’s chin as Debbie kisses her temple. “I’m scared, Debs. What if something _bad_ happens? What if something goes _wrong_? What if I’m not gonna make it and _they _get hurt? I’m such a fucking mess right now. And I don’t wanna let you down and-…”

“Lou, Lou, Lou, Stop it!…” Debbie interrupts her. Stops her mumbling before it comes too far. Debbie’s fingers come to her chin, making her raise her face up again. Making Lou look into her eyes. Making Lou listen to her and _hear_ each of her words. “You’re not a mess. And you’re not going to _ever_ let us down. Baby, just look at you. How far you’ve already come, doing this well! I’m so-so proud of you. You’re so strong. So brave. And so beautiful. You’re perfect. And you’ll be perfectly good, as perfectly good as we planned. And we’ll have our boys in a week already. And _they_ will be perfect, too.”

The sudden slight whirl in Lou’s belly makes Debbie’s hand travel its way under Lou’s shirt, caressing the silk skin right above the place of unauthorized after-midnight activity. An accustomed and routine gesture for them now: whoever of the boys it is – most likely most of the time it’s the one of them who is the ringleader - it’s better to calm them down back to sleep now or Lou won’t be able to fall asleep until the morning.

Concentrated on the movement inside her, Lou doesn’t see a kiss coming on her forehead. “You’re just tired, you need to have a rest,” another kiss – to her cheek. “It was a crazy day,” a trail of small kisses along the crook of Lou’s neck. “And it was a crazy month,” another trail, back to her pulse-point and behind her ear. A whisper, that sends a bunch of shivers – pleasant and warm ones this time – down her spine. “I promise, everything’s gonna be okay with you. With the _three_ of you.”

Lou inhales deeply. Closes her eyes. Listens how the pounding of her own heart in her ears retards deliberately, evens with the steady rhythm of Debbie’s heart, beating against her back.

Debbie’s right (not as always but at least as usual recently – these fucking last couple months of pregnancy 100% displaced all the logical thinking and rational judgement out of her head). She’s been permanently bushed all this time. And on top of infinite sleep deprivation, one-hundred-times-a-day peeing, shortness of breath after several steps walk, pain in the back in any body position, not to mention the perpetual duet-breakdancing in her womb with the clear intention to break her ribs from the inside – on top of this all, it was her birthday yesterday. The forty-sixth-damned-birthday. And although she didn’t lift a finger for it - Cordelia had outdone herself, preparing the celebration _behind her back_. And although she was sincerely happy to see all their huge family - including her parents, Debbie’s mom, Lizbeth and Kevin, Liam and Elsa, Danny and Tess (this whole bunch multiplied with _all_ their children). Although she was absolutely thrilled and surprised with all their girls-gang – Tammy with kids, Nine Ball, Constance, Amita, Rose and Daphne - who made it to Australia _for her _(they haven’t seen them for ages, since they moved back to Wilson Prom). And although the two most important people in her world – people who actually _are_ her _world_ – were there with her, every step of the way (with Dashiell, who’s suddenly, in a heartbeat, grown up, without even asking their permission, ultimately breaking Lou’s heart)… It all was way too much for her. She is completely, absolutely, universally exhausted and prostrated.

The set of Debbie’s kisses finds their way back to her lips, caressing her skin weightlessly and this time she returns the gesture. The corners of brunette’s mouth curl into the self-satisfied smirk against Lou’s lips when Lou’s body finally relaxes in her embraces. Lou bites at her bottom lip - a silent reminder not to get too conceited.

Their foreheads touch and Debbie’s hand stops its tender patterns on Lou’s stomach. They both freeze for a couple of seconds: listening, waiting. When no movement comes from inside of Lou, Debbie grins triumphantly. “Now don’t tell me mama Debbie doesn’t possess the superpower of pacifying any hurricane inside of you. Despite the nature of its origin: either it’s your rambunctious self-biting thoughts or our sons being bored in the middle of the night.”

Lou snorts at her but breaks into a wide, amused smile anyway – this woman of hers, she doubts she knows another person, this self-confident, presumptuous and monumental in her believes.

Her smile probably looks exhausted, tho. Because Debbie raises her hand to brush Lou’s bangs off her eyes to the side of her forehead - they grew enormously within the months and sometimes Lou sees nothing at all through them, and that’s terribly annoying, but Lou stubbornly refuses to cut them down for some surd and unknown reasons. Debbie runs her fingers through the blond hair to the back of Lou’s head, massaging and scratching softly and Lou rolls her eyes, almost losing consciousness on the feeling. Debbie’s lips land to Lou’s porcelain forehead for the umpteenth time this night.

“Now, when the tummy-aliens are asleep, and your disturbing thoughts are asleep, let’s sleep at least a little bit. Please.”

Lou only hums in reply, her eyes still closed. The quiet _‘I love you’_, whispered with an exhale against her hairline, makes her take a deep-deep breath. _“I love you, too”, _she mouths almost noiselessly, warmth and happiness filling her from the inside, replacing anxiety and wormwood of her nightmare.

Sometimes she wonders about strange jokes that life can play with us. Sometimes she speculates on the thought of how Debbie, who used to be a complete mess in all the relationship and feelings shit, has managed to turn into _this_. This strong, this confident, this caring, this tender, this loving person. Person, who makes her feel safe, and warm, and happy. A person who makes her _mean_ something. Person, who makes her feel important, feel _home_. Sometimes she bites on the inside of her cheek, doubting if she deserves this love. Wonders if she’s good enough for being with her, for being a mother for her daughter, for carrying her sons under her heart… Wonders if there’re at least rare moments when she can make Debbie feel the same. If she is worth of all Debbie’s efforts to become better than she is. If she is enough for Debbie to feel home, too.

But not now. Now, with her eyes closed, she nuzzles her face into the crook of Debbie’s neck, stays there for several quiet seconds feeling the steady beat of her beloved heart. Leans back, raises a little, moves her cumbersome body slightly forward – to make some space between herself and the headboard, letting Debbie return to her side of their bed. Feels the motion behind her back, smiles to herself because of how clumsily and yet endlessly carefully Debbie gets out of her trap. Avoiding even the slightest possibility of making her uncomfortable or, god forbid, hurting her. For the thousandths time admits to herself that she is the luckiest person because this is the only human she needs in this world and she can just love and love and love her no matter what. All her doubts, all her fears, all her insecurities are nothing comparing to what they’ve managed to build together. To what they have now and will have _together_ just in a week. She is completely, ultimately happy.

Debbie already slips under the blanket and tugs slightly on the sleeve of Lou’s shirt, encouraging her to join her there. And Lou already tries to shift her body to get comfortable. And she even starts lowering herself onto the mattress to nestle into Debbie’s side when the sudden jerk and the keen pain inside of her make the tears stream down her face again. She screams shortly and her heart falls down into her stomach when she feels wetness under herself. Her poor heart goes from zero to hundred in a second.

“_Lou?!”_ alarmed, Debbie’s already kneeled next to her.

“Wake… wake Liam up!” she pants heavily, “Something’s wrong,” pain suffocating her each breath. “We need… to the hospital. I think my water’s just broken.”

Terrified yet focused and composed, Debbie storms out of the room in nothing but her silk shorts and a tank top.

Gosh, thank god Lou’s parents got her a helipad and a fucking helicopter for her birthday. Gosh, thank god Liam has a Helicopter Pilot License.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> .dream.


	2. .nativitas.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...She never thought she might be happier than she was during this last year they spent together with her small family of three. But here she is...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i’m sorry…  
for disappearing from the radars.  
for it took me so long to write this chapter.  
and that, after such a long break, i give u what i give u.

*** November 12th, 2019; 4:45 AM / 4 years 1 month before now…**

It wasn’t in her plan to go either to Melbourne or to any place other than home, – other than their bedroom in particular, - the next morning after Lou’s birthday. But Liam’s whisked them to St Vincent's Private Hospital in a matter of an hour plus fifteen minutes without any additional adventures. And Debbie’s cool with that. Because although she hates when it goes sideways, the helicopter flight to the hospital is almost three times faster and thus more convenient than any car trip, and it’s definitely better to have no adventures on your way with your woman aboard the flight vehicle – scared, in pain and, most probably, in labour.

It wasn’t in her plan to see Lou’s doctor the next morning after Lou’s birthday or to be exact, earlier than their appointment on November 18th. But Dr. Beswick is the first person who meets them in the hospital as soon as their helicopter lands. And Debbie’s cool with that. Because although she hates when it goes sideways, by the time Dr. Beswick examines Lou and shouts ‘_Premature uterine contractions. Prep her for surgery in thirty minutes,_’ the delivery room is already prepared, and all the people involved are ready to start right away.

It wasn’t in her plan for them to become mothers of three instead of being mothers of only their shiny-shiny girl the next morning after Lou’s birthday – to be precise, they were supposed to enjoy the solitude of their trio a whole week more. But here they are, in a huge operating room, walls all dark-turquoise, with Lou lying on the surgical table in the middle, illuminated with dozens of light-emitting diodes of a surgical light system as if the leading actress on the stage of fucking National Theatre. And Debbie keeps telling herself she’s cool with that as well. Because although she _hates_ when it goes _sideways_ and although Lou, as pale as the snowy-white hospital gown she’s wearing, clenches her left hand to the cracking of metacarpal bones, Dr. Beswick ensures them everything is fine. ‘Yes, it’s slightly _sooner_ than expected, but it’s within acceptable terms. Yes, Mrs. Miller is in the _risk_ group because of her age and some certain features of her lifestyle as a young adult, but both she and your boys are strong and healthy. You’re in one of the best maternity hospitals in Australia; we have the best professionals in the city and the most advanced equipment. Spinal anaesthesia is performed, so she’ll be conscious and we’ll be able to monitor her state permanently. The risk exists, but it exists _always_ and now it’s _minimal_. Everything is almost according to the plan.’ Apparently, none of their kids gives a damn about any of their plans: Dashiell was two weeks late; her partners-in-crime decided to come out one week early.

Debbie takes a deep breath, fidgets on her tabouret to move as close to Lou as possible. The tissue wall splits Lou’s body into two right in the middle of her chest, separating them from the actual main playground with all the doctors fussing there. The fabric is blue, as blue as the sky itself in the sunniest, warmest spring day. And the whole twenty or forty seconds of a silent watching pass before Debbie realizes that it is the mixture of blinding lights, the distinct smell of sanitizers in the sterile enclosed space and the freaking pressure of situation that makes everything around unnaturally clear and precise. All her senses are sharp as never before: she can see how the threads intertwine into canvas on the divider’s cloth, how the droplets of liquid medication one by one slowly fall from the IV bag into the drip chamber, can hear every rustle of surgeon’s scrubs as he navigates next to them, the quietest clatter of the surgical instruments, being methodically prepared by one of the nurses somewhere on the left. It’s close to her usual state of concentration when performing a job when she notices each and every smallest detail. But this time it’s something stronger, something bigger, something much more significant and complicated. _This_ is a hundred times more important than any of most brilliant jobs she’s ever pulled off, a thousand times more important than even Met. And thus, this is too much even for her brain to handle. She can feel how her hands, one of which is still being squeezed by one of Lou’s, start trembling without permission. 

The cardiac monitor on the right beats a monotonous staccato: medications have decreased Lou’s pulse to the usual human 65 instead of 80 per minute, but it’s steady and confident. The beeping sound is annoying, yet Debbie reminds herself that it is _Lou’s heart beating_ and concentrates on it for several seconds to clear her mind and to ground herself. It was not often during their years and years of work together that Debbie was in the role of secondary. But she _is_ secondary today. Today she is here _for_ Lou. And although once intrepid Deborah Ocean has finally accepted the fact that now there’re things she’s afraid of because now there’re things to _lose,_ and she just _cannot_ lose them. Today she’s here to be as fearless and strong as possible. “You’re my _citadel_ that keeps me safe even from myself,” Lou told her once. So, Ocean, citadel you are.

She makes an effort to stop her mind from wondering, evens her breathing, and the shivering of her hands eliminates gradually. Screws up her eyes before to open them again and they shift from the surfaces around them to Lou’s face.

Her heart skips a beat and she immediately curses herself - these short minutes of her own qualms turned out to be endless enough for Lou to start spiraling in the limitless hard vacuum space that is settled inside of her head. Debbie knows this side of Lou too well. Not only once had she to face its darkness and emptiness years and years ago. Not only once struggled she to swarm through its viscous and nasty thickness to get to Lou and to drag Lou out of its depths. And Debbie fears this side of Lou like a plague, for it is where all of Lou’s scariest demons dwell outside of their cages. And each of them is menacing to other people. And each of them is fatal to Lou herself.

Lou’s eyes, uncharacteristically colourless and almost transparent under this artificial sunlight, – just like the marbles in one of Dashiell’s favourite board games, stare at the ceiling without blinking. Her jaws are clenched tightly with her cheekbones somehow much more prominent than Debbie remembers during the last months. The longer Lou gazes into an abyss, the longer the abyss gazes back into her…

“Lou,” Debbie whispers quietly yet loud enough for Lou to hear. When only silence follows as a response, she repeats “Lou,” her lips now touching the blonde’s temple and a single tear that escapes down from Lou’s eyelashes when she finally shuts her eyes, burns like boiling water.

“It’s gonna be all right,” Debbie mutters, her free hand sliding up to cup Lou’s face. “I _promise_,” fingertips caressing the velvet skin of Lou’s cheek and lips. “Hold on just a little longer. And we’ll have our miracle boys with us. With us and our miracle girl.”

At the mentioning of Dashiell, Lou’s eyes open and she takes a deep shaky breath, her head making a couple of firm nods – a clear sign she’s back to reality. She turns her head to kiss Debbie’s palm, her lips lingering there for an extra second. And when her eyes, reddish from tears but still piercing like diamonds, dart up to finally lock with Debbie’s, Debbie feels relief and confidence slowly settle inside of her, filling each and every corner of her body like warm essential oil.

“_It’s gonna be all right_,” Lou whispers, reciprocating Debbie’s own words, and it is the only thing Debbie can hear. Lou’s smile, small but sincere, intended for Debbie only, and Lou’s eyes, radiating again with their usual candescent ocean blue, are the only things Debbie can see right now. And just like that Debbie knows that everything _will be fine_. And that Lou believes her and _knows_ that, too. And that Debbie doesn’t need to find new and new ways to defeat Lou’s demons anymore. Because their _daughter_… No, because their _children_ are the most powerful weapon, the Evening Star that fills the furthest spaces of Lou’s soul and makes all of Lou’s darkness vanish…

When they deliver the first boy… When they clean him, wrap him in a blanket, and lay him on Lou’s chest… When Lou, as naturally as if he’s always belonged there, envelopes her arms around his tiny body and Debbie’s trembling fingertips flutter against the dark-golden down on the top of his head for the first time, sending dozens and dozens of small electrical charges through her fingers all the way to her guts and further, down her spine… Debbie’s heart… Debbie’s thoughts… And the entire world around the three of them suddenly decelerates their pace as if in slow motion…

When (in three minutes, the doctor says so, which feel like an eternity) they deliver the second baby, repeating the procedure, with nurses cleaning him and wrapping him in the blanket… When, instead of joining his predecessor on Lou’s chest, this particular small bundle ends up in Debbie’s arms, with Debbie’s eyes widening with surprise and terror simultaneously… The world stills… All the noises go mute… All the lights around them dim, leaving Lou’s smiling face and the two newcomers, who greet their mothers with persistent, disgruntled wailing, the only three bright spots for Debbie in this universe.

Carefully but firmly, Debbie presses the boy closer to her chest, hoping this will stop her heart from its attempts to break through her ribcage to be as physically close to the three creatures in front of her as possible. From his small, pink weeping face her eyes travel to the light-headed one of his elder brother’s, who meanwhile has warmed up in Lou’s arms and whose crying now trails away, gradually turning into a quiet grunting instead. She smiles without knowing it and her gaze shifts further, locks on the bright-blue eyes, already attracted to her own. Curious. Concerned. Waiting. Searching. Whatever Lou’s been looking for in Debbie’s face, apparently she finds and, all of a sudden, her smile widens (as if it’s even possible for it to be wider). And even through the wall of tears that, out of nowhere, blur Debbie’s vision, it seems that somehow, her Lou literally glows from the inside.

She smiles back. Because anything else doesn’t feel right at the moment…

Her girl. Her love. Her life. Her Lou. So subtle, sensitive and fragile, but so impossibly strong, hardy, brave and stubborn at the same time. Her beautiful, sophisticated, ethereal, mighty Lou. How could she even possibly have thought of ever walking away from her? How could she possibly have walked? How could she have let it happen that, seven years ago when Dashiell was born in the same sterile lightroom, her Lou had to go through this all alone?... She will never forgive herself for that. 

But Lou’s forgiven her, right? Her kind, her patient, her always-so-wise Lou has forgiven her. And now she’s here, witnessing the most amazing, most precious, most marvelous and mind-blowing thing she’s ever seen in her entire life. Witnessing the birth of _their_ sons.

She wonders if Lou knows. If she _really_ understands it: how much Debbie loves her; how endlessly grateful she is for their family – for the world that Lou has built for her. The world Lou keeps building every day. Wonders if she shows her love and gratitude enough, if her innate Ocean-silver-tongue is skilled enough to explain everything properly. She’s never been good at admitting her feelings, at talking about them out aloud. And even now, _especially now_, she wants to scream about her love, to roar like thunder, like a lioness, but 171,476 words in the English language feel just _not enough_ to illuminate all the spectrum of Debbie’s emotions, all the amplitude of Debbie’s love. So, she just tilts forward, and their lips touch, and they kiss, and she hopes that the quiet “_I love you, I love you so much_” half-muttered, half-whispered against Lou’s lips, is enough.

When she leans back and their looks meet again, a waterfall of the unshed tears that were welling in Debbie’s eyes just a second ago, pour down her cheeks, because Lou’s still grinning at her and because the words that Lou’s lips are mouthing to her seem suspiciously similar to “_I love you, too_.”

The movement against her chest distracts her from Lou, making her eyes drop down. “I’m afraid that’s the wrong mommy, buddy,” chuckles she through the tears at her newborn youngest son, whose little mouth gasps air in vain attempts to feed himself. She looks at his concentrated face, her fingers caressing with trepidation the almost bald, unlike his brother’s, top of his head, his frowning nearly-albino-blonde brows, his small button-like nose, his chubby baby cheeks. She chuckles again, one of the tears falling on his small forehead, and she kisses it away, not knowing what else to do and how to prevent her heart from bursting out and her chest from exploding from the inside. She never thought she would be able to love someone until she met Lou. And then Dashiell appeared in their lives and, once again, she never thought she would be able to love someone as much as she loved Lou and their little girl. Simply because there was no way for Deborah Ocean’s heart to be big enough to accommodate this much love… She never thought she might be happier than she was during this last year they spent together with her small family of three. But here she is. Their boys are just born but she already loves them as much as she loves their daughter. They are just born but she knows for sure she would steal all the treasures of this world for them, she would die for them just the same way she would die either for Lou or for Dashiell. They are just born but they clicked perfectly, as if the final two pieces of their puzzle, so easily taking the right place, the right orbit in their tiny universe. Now it is finally complete. Now it starts its new chapter, with Debbie’s heart bursting with so much love and happiness that it hurts.

“Her blood pressure is declining,” Dr. Beswick assistant’s voice sounds somewhere close to them, sharply cutting through Debbie’s thoughts and returning her to reality.

“See that. Phenylephrine 200 µg IV and 500 mL colloidal.” At a loss, Debbie’s eyes start darting between the medical staff, who are, once more, way too noticeable around them.

“Heart rate dropped to 45.”

“_What’s going on?_” Debbie wants to scream because her head is spinning from misunderstanding and confusion and from the drastic speed of surgical team dashing in front of her eyes, but the sonorous wailing of her eldest son, followed by an even louder one of her youngest, outruns her. Her face jerks to the right, where the nurse is already taking the baby from Lou. From Lou, whose face suddenly loses all its colour. From Lou, whose lips turn greyish-blue, whose eyes roll and whose head drops to the side.

“What’s going out?” Debbie finally squeezes out from herself, but it’s either the lack of air in her lungs or the thundering of her own heart in her ears, and she hears herself as if somewhere on the distance, somewhere far.

“Heart rate 22. Move the children away.”

“What’s going out?” Debbie yells even louder, pressing her crying son closer to her chest, but her voice sounds even farther, through the fog that clouds her thoughts and common sense, and when another nurse takes the boy from her arms, all at once she feels as cold and empty as if the temperature in the room’s pitched to 45 below zero within a second.

“She’s not breathing. Nancy! Tracy! Please remove Mrs. Miller from the surgery. Patrick, chest compression…”

“No! What the hell is going out? No, I’m not leaving her!” Debbie wants to push the nurses away, but she sees as Dr. Beswick shoves an intubation plastic tube in Lou’s throat and her arms, suddenly weak and trembling, just stop working, and her legs as heavy as if chained with the cast-iron, obediently carry her towards the exit. She wants to convince them, wants to explain that she needs to stay, that she _must_ stay, but her vocal cords betray her, too, turning her into a fish on dry land, helplessly gasping for air. Debbie wants to cry, wants to fight to be there _with_ _Lou_, no matter what’s happening right now, but her vision blurs and her throat burns without making a sound. When the nurses finally escort her out of the operating room, she hears almost nothing through the noise of her own thundering heart beating in the vacuum of her head. But the last sound she actually hears before the door shuts in front of her face, - the sound, like a sharp knife stab to her gut, so terrifying and paralyzing that she feels her blood curdling in her veins, her breath hitching in her throat and every hair on her body standing upright, - is the high-pitched endless tone of the fucking cardiac monitor. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> .birth.
> 
> my dearest readers, i kindly remind u that i'm just the "tool" that is being used to tell u this story - i don't hold the reins to the plot twists. but i promise to do my best to make things right.  
thank u to everyone, who keeps following this story:)))  
and tons of thanks to my amazing @hope_savaria : for ur time and efforts to beta this chapter and for ur kind words and understanding in encouraging me:))))


	3. .acies.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...“I feel her fingertips drawing patterns on my heart. Her voice still resonates down to my bones with nine octaves. She’s everything I can think about. She’s everything that’s been keeping me alive during a good half of my life, the only reason I survived through jail. I cannot breathe without her. So how can I not follow her, Bumblebee, how can I not?”...

*** November 12th, 2019 7:00 AM / 4 years 1 month before now…**

Debbie hates waiting. No matter how patient she is. No matter how brilliantly she plans and puts all her projects into action. No matter how cold-blooded, concentrated, detached and calculating they believe her to be. Waiting is akin to losing control for Debbie. It’s painful. Waiting for every part of her impeccable plans to assemble into masterpiece pyramids, step by step, as if tens of small jewellery bricks. Waiting for the fucking five years eight months and twelve days to expire, leaving all the chain-link, barb wire and that disgusting orange jumpsuit behind her as if it was a bad dream. Waiting for her five-year-old to finally acknowledge her as her mother after the endless series of ignoring, tantrums and manipulations, purposed to blow Debbie’s central nervous system to smithereens…

Yes, waiting is painful. Waiting and _not knowing what to expect_ is painful. Not knowing if her plan will thrive in the end or crumble like a damn-house-of-cards, sending her and everyone she cares about behind bars. Not knowing if, when she comes back after five years eight months and twelve days, everything’s gonna be the same, or if Lou will not be Lou and if she may not be she anymore. Not knowing if, after all those gut-checks and endurance tests, her child will stop calling her by her name and start calling her ‘Mom’…

And although those weeks, months and years of waiting used to be the worst kind of suffering for Debbie’s over-controlling mind, she can count on one hand moments that were turned into the worst nightmares of her life by waiting in suspense. One: she was fifteen and was trying to prove to her father she was ready to be involved in family affairs, and she ran into the wrong people, and Danny, saving her skin from being crippled and probably raped, got stabbed that night. Two: they were working with Danny, and the job went south and failing to kidnap Danny’s younger sister to punish him, one of her brother’s ‘friends’ ended up snatching her twenty-year-old _shadow_ from under their noses instead, and when they, by some fucking miracle, found Lou’s unconscious body, drugged and overdosed, in some dirty Shanghai alley, they didn’t know if she would make it through the night. Three: Lou got pneumonia in her early first trimester after one of the jobs, and, of course, they neglected any doctors for several days, until she got really bad and started losing consciousness, and that very first night they spent in the hospital, with Lou burning and not coming to her senses, and Debbie not knowing if she was gonna lose either her child or her Lou, or both of them. Four: she was standing shoulders-deep in the water, her teeth chattering, her body frosting over and her blood-freezing, watching for a whole forty-seven seconds (she knows for sure, for she was counting) as Lou was trying and failing to find and grab Dashiell out of the depths of the black waves of the Bass Strait. Five: the thirty minute ride to Phuket hospital, followed by the four hours spent in the hall, with her hands and face stained with Dashiell’s blood and with her poor Lou trying to seem tough but sneaking away to the washroom every now and then, because the reality of their daughter crumbling from the two-story high tree and being operated on behind one of these doors alone, was turning her stomach inside-out.

Debbie _could_ count those moments on one hand. Yet, to her dismay, she’s just started a tab on her second one. And with a record of 3, _Lou_ is _ahead_.

She dragged herself into the blinding whiteness of the waiting hallway more than an hour ago. More than an hour ago, not able to hold it, she snapped ‘_I-DON’T-FUCKING-KNOW_’ at the swarm of ‘What’s happened’ questions, poured down on her by their family. For more than an hour, she’s been walking to and fro down the hall, like a trapped wounded animal. Fifty-three steps from one end of the hallway to another. Seventy-eight charcoal tiles, alternating under her feet. Twenty-two rectangular LED-lamps above her head. Three calls to Cordelia’s phone, five to Liam’s and one to her mother’s. One hundred and forty-six unread messages in their group-chat, blinking mutely on the small screen of her Apple Watch. Debbie meticulously counts all and everything, clutching at numbers as life-lines, miserably trying to anchor her thoughts on anything, to distract her brain in any way. But no matter what, the image of Lou’s pale-white face lingers in front of her eyes as if a permanent hologram.

Panic and horror crawled their way under Debbie’s skin as soon as she was thrown out of the surgery. They’ve put down their roots, have dug their claws deep into the flesh of her entrails, slaughtering her heart ruthlessly with its every beat. She cannot take back self-control, cannot pull herself together. She cannot make herself face either Lou’s parents or Liam, or her own mother, all seated quietly on the different couches not far from her. And the worst of it is, she cannot make herself look into the eyes of her daughter, who’s been sitting motionlessly in an armchair a little way from everyone. Back straight, gaze glued to Debbie’s ghosting figure, Dashiell seems not to be breathing, only flinches and shakes her head at every attempt of her grandmothers to talk to her. And if her face now mirrors Debbie’s own expression, as it usually does on rare occasions when their seven-year-old doesn’t know how to react and tries to replicate Debbie’s signature façades, ‘self-control’ is the last thing that describes both of them at the moment.

“Stop it!” Debbie suddenly falls to her knees in front of her daughter, pulling the napkin out of her back pocket and carefully rubbing Dashiell’s left palm. The girl’s fists were zealously clenching to the white knuckles, fingernails digging, scratching the soft skin - a nervous habit inherited from Lou - and several small drops of blood have already spoiled her ivory sweatpants.

“Mama?” Dashiell’s voice is uncharacteristically timid and quiet, and when Debbie finally dares to raise her eyes to her daughter’s, her heart plummets, and guilt grips its ugly tentacles tightly around Debbie’s throat and lungs, squeezing out all the remaining air. The huge azure-blue eyes, although partly covered with ridiculously long bangs (which they’ve been disregarding to cut because, _of course_, there were things that seemed to be more urgent), glimmer with the feverish red as she desperately tries to hold back tears. Her bottom lip pouts and starts quivering and she bites it hard in her last-ditch effort not to cry (another ‘baggage’ gesture, totally and completely Lou’s), but when Debbie brings her hands to cup Dashiell’s small porcelain face, the bitter teardrop finally betrays her and tumbles down from the dark-brown bushy eyelashes.

“Don’t,” Debbie mutters weakly, wiping the wetness from her daughter’s cheek, her own tears painfully burning the back of her throat. Their little girl. Their beautiful, fearless little girl. She has never, _never_ seen Dashiell this scared and lost. Debbie wants to wrap herself around her, to hold her close to her heart because now she seems to be as small and vulnerable as her newborn sons. She wants to comfort her, to chase away all her fears, to whisper into her ear that everything’s gonna be all right. But haven’t her promises just confirmed themselves to be worthless? Has’t she let her down? She cannot lie to Dashiell. That’s not how they work. Dashiell reads her like an open book, reads her even better than Lou sometimes. And now the look on her daughter’s face is as horrified as if through Debbie’s own eyes she sees for herself as her mother’s heart stops.

The girl shivers and exhales shakily as another tear rolls down her cheek. “Stop it,” Debbie whispers again more firmly, carefully brushes the messy hair off Dashiell’s face, gently kisses Dashiell’s wounded palm. She doesn’t hear one of the doors behind her back opening, doesn’t notice as another person joins their small company of six in the hall. Only when Cordelia’s hand mildly lands on her does shoulder she jerk, hearing her name, and in a trice she’s on her feet, standing in front of Dr. Beswick.

“For fuck sake, what the hell happened in there?” she snarls at the man before he even opens his mouth.

“_Deborah!_” she hears the outraged voice of her mother somewhere close behind her back, but it doesn’t help at all. Debbie’s furious. Terrified and furious.

“No, it’s fine.” Dr. Beswick raises his hand up, showing Debbie’s mother he can handle it himself. As if he did it hundreds time before. As if Debbie’s just a petulant child, who’s not aware of her actions. Of course, that only makes her angrier. He takes a deep breath.

“Debbie, your wife – “

“–_Lou!_” she cuts in the middle. For some reason, it seems crucially important now to call her by her name. To remind him she’s not just one of his patients. She’s _her Lou_.

“_Lou_ has had a heart attack,” he pauses for a moment, probably expecting Debbie to break again but goes on when she only furrows her brows in misunderstanding. “We initiated advanced life support and had to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Thankfully, we were able to restart her heart and to finish surgical procedure but–”

“–but you told us everything was _fine_,” Debbie interrupts again, her voice enriched with the menacing tones while her brain is vainly trying to catch up with the sense of the doctor’s words, scarcely keeping the shreds of reality together. “You told us the three of them were _strong_ and _healthy_! You told us the risk was _minimal_! You _promised_ me they _all_ would be _fine_!” Her thoughts are racing in her head frantically, the only one she manages to distinguish in the ocean of chaos is ‘_At least she’s alive. She’s alive. No matter what, she’s alive, right?_’. She feels the pins and needles starting in her fingertips and moving quickly up along her arms. The needle-pricks of fear from her backbone to her collarbone, from her throat to her elbows, back to the pads of her fingers. She’s burning, inside.

“I _know_ what I said,” Beswick’s lips stretch into a thin line, he pinches the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes for a second, and if not for the circumstances Debbie would have felt sorry for him. He’s a good doctor and a good person, but now it’s worth nothing to her. “But I warned you that the risk existed always. She had an amniotic fluid embolism. We _could not_ predict it. It’s an extremely rare condition, which happens when some of the fetus’ cells get into the mother’s bloodstream and move to her lungs. It caused the heart attack and cardiac arrest. As I said, _thankfully_, we were lucky to restart her heart. But the cardiac arrest lasted four and a half minutes and, unfortunately, she’s lapsed into a coma. Debbie, Mr. and Mrs. Miller, we must be patient and strong - global cerebral ischemia during those 270 seconds could have resulted in some serious consequences. We do not know if there’s any brain damage. And _if_ there _is_, we don’t know how severe and irreversible it is. I'll be frank with you, I’m very sorry, but at this point, we _cannot_ guarantee she will wake up _at_ _all_. We have done our utmost, stabilized her vitals for now. We’re transferring her to the Intensive Care Unit, she’s gonna be placed under constant supervision…”

Little by little Debbie loses the train of the doctor’s words, his monotonous narrative quietens in her ears, turning into an alien radio wave somewhere on the periphery of her mind. She can hear only the heavy rhythm of her breath, the tidal murmur of her blood climbing brain ward on one side of her neck and descending heart ward on the other. She physically feels as her guts wrench and her heart tears apart into a bloody mess in the middle of her chest, a wave of nausea crashing against her throat. Slowly like in the fog, she turns on her heels, her gaze unfocused, eyes wandering the faces of her family members around her. Her gaze lands for a moment upon Liam, who absently runs his hand through his hair and whose confused and scared facial expression makes his huge-like-bear posture look juvenile and absurdly small; shifts to unbreakable Cordelia, whose back is unchangeably straight but whose blue eyes, red and puffy, are still fixed on the doctor, and whose hands are wrapped in a death grip around her husband’s forearm.

Debbie’s already accelerated heartbeat doubles immediately as she turns her head and her eyes fall down on Dashiell. There’s no trace of the Millers’ brand-royal-posture at any event, nor a signature tense in her jaw that highlights the hints of unmistakable sharp cheekbones, inherited from Lou’s side. Crawled into a corner of her armchair, this slouched weak creature reminds Debbie more of a small wild animal than of her daughter. With tears mutely streaming down her cheeks without restraint, her little girl quakes uncontrollably, like an aspen leaf in the wind. Debbie cannot stomach all the pain and despair in Dashiell’s eyes. Dashiell shouldn’t be here. Dashiell shouldn’t have heard all of these terrible things. And as soon as the white noise of Lou’s doctor’s voice dies down, she gathers all her remaining strength and calmness and utters, with her voice surprisingly firm and tranquil.

“Liam, I want you to take Dashiell home. _Now_.”

__________________

She was fighting. _Of course_, she was fighting. Like a jaguar. Like a fucking dragon, small but fierce, hissing through her teeth, kicking with both her hands and feet, growling and screaming to the bone, until her hoarse voice was rattling quietly deep in her scalded throat. Only after the forty-minute-tantrum, the first in public yet the most horrible anyone could ever expect, when her vocal cords had been ripped badly and the lasts of energy had left her timid brave body, Debbie finally managed to crawl to the shadowed corner of the hospital washroom, where she’d stymied herself in the process, to scoop her up into her arms like a lifeless rag-doll and to cuddle her to her chest. Ten minutes of weak ‘_I-don't-want-to-leave-her! I-don’t-want-to-leave-her!_’, rustled repeatedly, as if a broken record, into the crook of Debbie’s neck, petite fists gripping the collar of Debbie’s shirt. Ten more of ‘_I promise you, you’ll be back before evening. They won’t let anyone near her for at least two more hours anyway_,’ being whispered into the softness of disheveled dark-auburn hair. And only after she showed her her brothers, safely and peacefully sleeping in their cribs behind the glass of the newborn nursery, Dashiell finally surrendered and agreed to go home. Provided that she would be back _before evening_. From the last message that Debbie received from Cordelia in half an hour after they had left, Dash passed out and succumbed into sleep in the twelfth minute of their flight.

__________________

She feels full of a dense and sour substance that is blocking her chest, and it’s not grief. After all these hours of waiting and information that followed them, life now seems like no more than a trap, a maze, not even a maze, just a room that is all walls, no doors.

The lights around are dimmed, windows shuttered and the only noise that interrupts the all-consuming silence is a dull sound of an ECG monitor, each beep bouncing against the walls of the intensive care unit like a bouncing rubber ball and getting lost in its space. In sharp contrast with Dashiell’s screams, whose echo is still ringing in Debbie’s ears on the highest, impossibly sonorous note.

The last time she saw Lou was almost five hours ago. Some things haven’t changed since then: the same cardiac monitor and drip-stand next to her, the same snow-white hospital bed sheets under her body, as white as the hospital gown she is dressed in. The same hospital wrist tag, which, Debbie knows by heart, says ‘_Miller-Ocean, Louise C, Sex F, DOB 11/11/73, Type AB+_’. Only now there are countless sensors, wired up to her, snaking above the veins, which are explicitly visible under the transparent skin of her slender arms; sticking to her chest, which rises and falls heavily with her every inhale and exhale. They’ve removed the tracheal tube (‘she breathes on her own and it’s a good sign,’ Beswick said) and the hospital hat from her head, but even in comparison with her platinum blonde hair that messily covers her closed eyes, her skin seems to be even paler than before. As if all her blood, all to the last precious drop of it, has been drained out of her.

Bare feet tucked beneath her, Debbie’s shoved herself into the cushions of the dark-grey couch on the opposite wall. All the doctors and medical staff left the room thirty minutes ago, but since being left alone, she’s been sitting here, two meters from the hospital bed, having no courage either to move or even to take a breath, deep enough to be heard. Having no courage to shorten the distance between them. To get closer. To touch. Having no courage to feel the soft skin under her fingertips, to find it cold as ice. No, she’s not ready to face this reality. She’s not ready to accept, to acknowledge that this motionless, brittle, faint person in front of her is no one other than her Lou.

“To love someone means to open yourself to the positive as well as the negative. ”Debbie startles and almost jumps in her seat, her mother’s voice ripping her out of her half-trance, half-thoughtless state, where she’s been trying to lock her mind for the last twenty-five minutes. “To joy, fulfilment and consciousness as well as to disappointment, grief and intensity of sorrow we didn’t know was possible before.” _In good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, _immediately by reflex float up in Debbie’s memory - words muttered to Lou two months ago.

Debbie watches as Anna approaches Lou’s bed with small confident steps, watches as she brings her hand to Lou’s face, smoothes the locks of unruly luminous bangs out of the hooded eyelids.

“My poor girl.” She cups Lou’s face. “My poor baby Lou.” Caresses the soft spot under her eye and Debbie curses herself for having less bravery than her mother has right now. “I’ve always known you’d end up together, crashing into each other like two elements, two forces of nature. Breaking each other’s hearts, ripping each other’s wings. Since the very first day you brought her home. Unlike you and Danny - still so naïve, so innocent at her nineteen. Such a pure child. But she clung to you all the time, with her eyes shining and her smile widening, would worship you as if you were a superhero. She was a moth and you were her flame, and I could only hope that instead of destroying her you would eventually learn how to love her as much as she loved you. I rooted for this clunky kid, all elbows and knees, admiring how gorgeous and excessively powerful she turned out to be in the end. Because I had learnt first hand the hard way to love the Ocean and to struggle to blossom in their shadow. ”

Anna runs her fingers through shoulder-length blond strands, leans down, pressing her lips to Lou’s temple. Debbie feels like the pain, she was trying to keep under control, is returning from its shelter in her brain, feels as it radiates from her solar plexus, feels it echo in her head and down her spine, across her back, around her throat and, nauseatingly, through her body.

Debbie tugs her knees to her chest, brings her palms to her face, heels of her hands pressing against her eyes until she sees white circles on the back of her eyelids. She shivers slightly as Anna settles herself next to her on the couch and, when her mother’s arm wraps itself around her shoulders, Debbie cannot hold the sob that escapes her chest.

“Your girl is tough. Her heart is a hard nut to crack and as far as I’m concerned, the only powers capable to break it all currently bear the Miller-Ocean last name.”

Debbie’s head falls to her chest and she shakes her head bitterly, her voice muffled and strangely hoarse. “I can’t… What if…? I just can’t!”

“Debbie!” She feels as Anna squeezes her shoulder firmly. Feels, when she still doesn’t dare to open her eyes, Anna’s fingers under her chin, urging her to meet her gaze. And when Debbie finally looks, her mother’s emerald-green eyes are already fixed on her. “Deborah! Closing your eyes changes nothing. This is not gonna disappear just because you don’t want to face it. You’ve always been my fearless lioness. You’ve always been protecting your family, ready to rip the throats. You’ve always been protecting Lou as if she were an airy fuzzy dandelion. So don’t you dare to give up now, when she needs you the most! Oceans don’t do that!”

Anna looks at her expectantly and when she finally gets a small but firm nod as a reply, “Good girl!”She kisses Debbie’s forehead and gets up from the couch. “She needs you, sweetpea. Be with her. Talk to her. They say they can hear us sometimes.”

Debbie watches as Anna moves towards the door, high heels clicking against the white tiles ostentatiously loudly for a place like this. Even in a hospital, even at the age of 77, Anna Ocean looks as if the whole world is in her pocket. Eleven-centimetre stilettos, pencil-skirts, satin blouses: an impeccable, elegant sense of style – the only thing Debbie thinks she inherited from her mother. Well, and her love for gemstones. David Ocean might have been a criminal. Among other things, he might have been stealing, there were jewels. But the most beautiful had always been for his wife.

“Do you miss him?” Anna is already in the doorway when Debbie’s impulse question has her taken by surprise. Her back to Debbie, she freezes for a couple of long seconds, and her shoulders fall, just for a moment.

Debbie’s dad passed this September, one month after Lou and Debbie’s wedding. He died like in a book – in the middle of his life, in the middle of a sentence. With Dashiell peacefully sleeping, cuddled to his side on the couch when they arrived to visit Debbie’s parents. Heart attack. They almost don’t talk about him. Still not ready. Still too early. But Debbie wants to know… if something dies inside of you while still alive.

“He makes me laugh out loud at the most inconvenient times, and that's the great good news. But his absence is also a lifelong nightmare of homesickness for me.”

Anna smiles at Debbie with one of those secret charming smiles, which from time to time play on Debbie’s own lips, without her even acknowledging their origin. And when the sounds of her heels fade in the halls of the hospital, Debbie finally makes herself to approach Lou’s bed.

She doesn’t look too pale close, her Lou. If you take away all the wires and tubes, all the monitors around, she actually looks weirdly… _normal_. Even peaceful. Almost as if she’s just sound asleep. Almost as if it’s a usual early morning in their bedroom, way too early for Dashiell to crawl into their bed and nestle herself between them; when the very first single sunray somehow sneaks through the tiniest gap between the closed shutters and starts dancing on Lou’s silky-alabaster skin. In the mornings like this, Debbie kisses Lou softly to wake her up and she can swear, when their lips meet, it tastes like the following fifty years of her life. Usually, Lou breaks into the cutest shy smile right away, as if in her dreams she’s always waiting for Debbie. Usually, Lou’s ocean-blue eyes flutter open and look right at Debbie and there’s so much love radiating from them even through her impossibly long bangs, even through the still present thick curtain of sleepiness, that it always sends the jolt of electricity down Debbie’s spine.

Debbie takes a deep breath. Leans forward. Lou’s lips are surprisingly warm and familiar, and for some reason, this discovery makes a shred of hope, just the smallest sparkle of it, flicker deep in Debbie’s chest. She parts from Lou. Her heart thunders heavily against her ribcage and then, suddenly, almost stills in anticipation. Debbie observes Lou’s features carefully, looking for the smallest hint, for the most insignificant or even invisible gesture. For thirty seconds. A minute. Two. But nothing happens. Nothing happens at all. Debbie looks away in one sharp motion of her head. Wipes her cheeks with the back of her palm. Forces herself not to let the sparkle inside of her wither down.

*** November 17th, 2019 11:30 PM / 4 years 1 month before now…**

Dashiell is curled into a tiny ball on the couch, on the side that is closer to the two hospital bassinets sitting on the top of mobile mahogany cabinets.

They moved Lou to this new room, with more space for Debbie, Dashiell and the boys, three days ago. Doctors were against it, of course, they were. But after long arguments, when Dr. Beswick was still rejecting Debbie’s request, Cordelia looked at her with a silent “Why?” in her eyes and Debbie finally cried out frustrated and so-fucking-obvious “Because I want her to know _she’s not alone_. I want her to know _we’re here_!” And that was it. Apparently, for people in Australia, last name ‘Miller’ is the same as the last name ‘Ocean’ in the thieves’ underworld. People in Australia do not say ‘No’ to Cordelia Miller.

Dashiell’s mostly sleeping these days. Wakes up when her brothers do and crumbles back to sleep together with them. Opting to wear nothing but her pyjamas, she looks like a bear cub. Like a small, lost, very sad, hibernating bear cub.

Debbie almost doesn’t sleep at all.

It’s been five days. Only five days and yet it feels like a whole eternity for her. She can see the sinus electric-green line on the back of her eyelids when she closes her eyes. She can feel the smell of sanitizers and medicaments on all her clothes and she can swear that, when she kisses her, she can feel it on Dashiell’s hair instead of her favourite butterscotch shampoo. She’s learnt each end every millimetre of this room. She’s memorized the whole content of Lou’s talmud-medical cart. She’s studied every crevice of her sons’ small bodies: she knows every line, every birthmark, every similarity and distinction between them so well she will never, never in her life can confuse them. It’s been five days. And every damned day ends with the same ‘steadily bad’ verdict.

“You know what I’ve noticed today?” Debbie puts the bookmark inside the book she’s been reading to Lou and sets it on the bedside table. “Dash stopped looking like me. We never noticed before, but she’s stretched out in height during these last months and now she’s the same lanky grasshopper that looks at me from your childhood photos.”

She turns and tilts her head to get in the view the sleeping forms of their kids. Their small pack. The only thing that still reveals Debbie in Dashiell is her dark-auburn hair. But the boys... Debbie thinks that the two blond-haired munchkins are the complete mini-models of her wife.

“Now _all_ our babies look like _you_. That’s not fair Miller. That wasn’t the deal.”

For five days, Debbie’s got used to talking this way – without getting any response, without such a familiar bold arch of an eyebrow, without a signature crooked smile. She’s gotten used to it, but it doesn’t mean her gaze doesn’t search Lou’s features for any reaction every now and then. She’s gotten used to it, but it doesn’t mean she’s not anticipating and secretly hoping to meet the gaze of the clearest blue orbs every time she looks at her. She’s gotten used, but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt anymore.

Debbie moves her chair closer to the bed. Rests her elbows on the edge, takes one of Lou’s hands in hers. Kisses the knuckles, one by one.

“We should pay more attention to Dash, you know? She’s amazing with the boys, I could never imagine she could be this tender with someone. But I feel like something’s going on in her head and she doesn’t share because she doesn’t want to bother us. From my experience with you, nothing good happens from keeping everything inside. We should talk to her more when we’re h…”

_When we are home… _Debbie wants to say. Wants, but the words stuck in her throat. Sometimes it takes the most insignificant thing to crack your thorax open under a scalpel of circumstances. A breath of wind on the hill. A bird singing in the bush right next to your bench in the park. An ocean wave that cools your feet on the summer Australian day. A funny short blonde mohawk on the top of one of your sons’ head. All of a sudden, Debbie is aware she’s not sure anymore. She desperately wants to believe, desperately wants to hope. But her brain is a calculating machine of the last generation, it makes decisions based on irrefutable facts and accurate analysis. And the doctors, with utmost rigour and the impartiality of medieval executioners, keep telling her the same fucking verity they consider to be axiomatic: the longer Lou stays in this state, the fewer chances they have for this ‘When. We. Are. Home.’

She kisses the inside of Lou’s wrist, her lips lingering on the pulse point. She can feel her heart beating. Each beat of Lou’s heart. Each beat that makes Lou’s life one second longer. Debbie closes her eyes and counts. One. Two. Three. Four… Sixty... Another minute of Lou’s ‘being alive’. Another minute of her being with them. She cherishes each of them more than anything in the world. It grounds her a little bit. She clears her throat, making a rusty noise.

“You know what they’re saying about you, right? Personally, I think this all is bullshit. Take as much time as you need – we’ll buy this fucking hospital if you need. It’s just…” Debbie shifts closer to Lou. There’s no one in the room except for them. Dashiell is asleep. But she just wants Lou to hear her very well. If, of course, she is listening to her at all.

“I just want you to know that now it’s my turn. From now on, I’m gonna follow you every step of the way. Wherever you go. Whatever it takes. And if you… If you decide to _leave_… Of course, you can, you can decide whatever you want. But... I want you to know that if you’re gonna choose that way… it has only one door… And. If you’re gonna choose it, I will follow you, too… And there will be no way back for us.”

“You really _will_ leave with her if she _leaves_, won’t you?” Debbie almost jumps in her seat, her head jerking towards the couch where Dashiell is now seated in the lotus as if she is a small Buddha. Debbie doesn’t know how much she’s heard. But it’s not important - she’s herd enough anyway. And she’s smart enough to connect the dots, to understand the point. There’s no judgement or hatred in her ocean eyes, though. There’s only deep longing and a degree of understanding that is insanely unacceptable and inappropriate for a seven-year-old.

“I feel her fingertips drawing patterns on my heart. Her voice still resonates down to my bones with nine octaves. She’s everything I can think about. She’s everything that’s been keeping me alive during a good half of my life, the only reason I survived through jail. I _cannot_ breathe _without_ her. So how can I not follow her, Bumblebee, how can I not?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> .edge.
> 
> tons of thanks to my amazing @hope_savaria: for ur time and efforts to beta this chapter and for telling me that you "really enjoy it";))))
> 
> and thank u to every single soul who keeps staying with us. i hope you enjoy reading this story as much as i enjoy writing it. would be happy to hear your thoughts and comments.


	4. .soror.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...“Your mom was the strongest and the bravest person I ever met. But now when I think of it I know you’re one, too. Just like her in so many ways,” Debbie whispered into her ear, pressing her to her chest and stroking her messy-from-slumber hair. “Please Bumblebee, please, promise to take care of your baby-brothers. You’re their citadel, they need you.”  
Those were the last words her mama said to her. It seems now like aeons ago...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh dear, it's been a while :)  
here we go...

*** December 18th, 2023; 03:15AM / 1 hr 45 min before now**

She’s been quite a sensitive sleeper recently. And it’s probably the feeling of someone’s presence in the room that wakes her up. When a small hand carefully touches her shoulder, she is already awake for at least five heartbeats. She almost expects it, yet it startles her and makes her heart skip a beat.

She opens her eyes, slowly turns towards the side of her bad where tiny fingers squeeze the fabric of her pyjamas, slightly shaking her. Windows of her bedroom are not curtained tonight – she’s been having nightmares lately and complete darkness only makes things worse. The almost-full-moon casts its light through the glass, illuminating the figure next to her from behind. His hair is shaggy from sleep and long, almost shoulder-length, so she knows it’s him even before she hears his voice.

“Dash!” he whispers but she doesn’t make a noise in response and the boy tugs on her sleeve again, not seeing if he’s succeeded in waking her up through his own sleepy, half-closed eyes. “Daaaaaaash!”

“What is it, Lanier?” she covers his hand with her own palm and he freezes for a second all of a sudden.

“It’s Dom. He’s crying again.”

Her hand moves to the nightstand, bringing her phone to life and the half-dimmed screen shows 3:15 AM. She tilts her head, nuzzles her face into the pillow and a growling sound escapes from her throat, immediately dies against the soft, still-warm fabric. It’s the fourth night in a row. This can’t go on this way. She needs to do something about it. Curled into each other, those two possums knock off strictly in the afternoon wherever possible, compensating for the lost hours of sleep, but she’s never been good at afternoon naps. And the dark circles under the eyes of a lanky elf-like creature that looks at her from the mirror every morning is only the slightest possible consequence of sleep deprivation.

She desperately wants to scream. Wants to pretend she is deaf and can’t hear him. To bury herself under her blanket and pillows and just. Go. Back. To sleep… But there goes another shake on her shoulder, this one much more persistent, and another “_Daaaa-shiii-eeeell_”, sing-songed in a shaking rhythm.

She raises herself into a sitting position with another quiet growl, desperately fighting against her closing eyelids. One of her legs has fallen asleep in her dream and now it starts prickling uncomfortably with hundreds of tiny needles. “You’re really irritating -,” she grumbles under her breath.

“But he is _crying_!” Lan inserts petulantly and the amount of resentment and outrage in her younger brother’s voice this time finally make her open her eyes completely.

She lowers her feet to the floor, leans her elbows on her knees, facing him. In sharp contrast with the warmth of her bed, the floor is unpleasantly cold (the whole week has been chilly and rainy, the almost permanent clouds making the boys gloomy and moody), and it sends the shivers from her toes and all over her body.

“Okay, okay… Give me a second,” she mutters with a yawn, heels of her palms rubbing her eyes and her feet trying to feel her slippers on the floor beside her bed. She bumps into the boy’s cold as ice foot instead, realizing finally that he’s standing there barefoot, wearing nothing but his Thor pyjamas, - the ones she put on him last evening before he went to bed, and the one from the two-piece Marvel set they bought in Chaddy after their unpleasant adventure yesterday morning. She takes a deep, exhausted breath, giving up on her own slippers and kneels near the boy. Without any verbal invitation, Lanier climbs on her back in a simple habitual motion, which he’s been repeating so many times for his short life that he can perform it with his eyes closed. Taking the circumstances of 3:15 AM, Dashiell wouldn’t be surprised if he does.

With both hands steading the boy, she somehow manages to open the door of her bedroom and already turns to the right towards her brothers’ nursery when a quiet, “nuh-uh”, more exhaled then muttered, tickles the back of her neck with warm air. She rolls her eyes, silently, turns on her heels and moves in the opposite direction, somewhat happy that now their path will take several meters less. It might be the Australian sun or Mrs. Carson’s homemade food, or the fact that both little guzzlers love eating more than anything in the world, but with the boys having grown into two little giants during these three weeks, it’s getting more and more difficult for her to carry them like this.

A mammoth heavy door to the master bedroom in this wing of the mansion is slightly ajar. Lanier never, never closes doors behind himself and usually Dashiell hates this habit, but now she’s actually grateful she doesn’t need to deal with it when wearing a seventeen-kilo ‘backpack’.

She’s not trying to walk quietly, not trying to hide her presence, but the fluffy dark-grey carpet absorbs the sounds of her small steps and when she pulls the blanket aside to retrieve the source of quiet sobbing (the only audible sound in the almost dark room), Dominic jumps with a start into a sitting position from where he’s just been curled up in a ball right in the middle of the huge bed. His elder brother climbs down from Dashiell’s back, flops next to him and by the time Dashiell gets into the bed and sets herself in a lotus in front of them, both boys are watching her with huge eyes wide-opened. Brown-eyed Lanier David and blue-eyed Dominic Lewis (the latter wearing the Loki-suit-like second part of the Marvel pyjamas set), her two personal troublemakers.

“Okay. I’m here. What is it, big man?”

The warm light cast from a night-lamp on the bedside table dimly illuminates the boys’ faces, and she watches as Dominic’s chest starts rising faster again, his mouth gasping for air after a short minute of evened breathing, and as his chubby cheeks, already red and swollen, glisten with tears again.

“Y..-you-you-you-kn..-kn...-knoo-ooo-ooooow…” he suffocates on each syllables, while his small fingers grab the collar of her ‘CBGB & OMFUG’ oversized black t-shirt and he crawls closer to her, snuggling his small body into the nest of her crossed legs. While he’s hiding his face, nuzzling it into her shoulder, his sobbing slowly increases in volume, another, still quiet whimper comes from the side and when Dashiell’s focus shifts from Dominic to Lanier, his bottom lip already trembles, and tears, as huge and pure as the diamonds in Cordelia’s safe they broke into when playing Robbers just a couple of days ago, already run down from his almost-black-in-this-light eyes.

With a sigh, in a silent invitation, she opens her other arm and Lan imitates his brother, trying to settle himself next to him. They’re suddenly too big to fit on her laps together, Lanier is visibly uncomfortable, wiggling constantly in the small space left for him. However, with his head now cuddled under Dashiell’s chin, and with Dom’s nose buried almost under her armpit, both wrapped safely in her arms as close to her as possible, they do not seem to care about anyone’s comfort. She takes another shuddered breath, hugs them a little tighter, ready to wait.

She already knows the ‘agenda’, for it is strictly the same for the fourth time in a raw: crying and in tears, Dominic wakes up in his bed in the middle of the night; Lanier, as a decent ‘big’ brother (Dashiell wouldn’t call the three-minutes-difference in their birth a significant one, but of course Lan keeps insisting) brings him to the master bedroom in an attempt to comfort him; when this idea doesn’t prove successful, he leaves Dom alone (after turning on the night-lamp, - “_because Dom is afraid of darkness_”, - and making him a ‘fort’ from the blanket and pillows, - “_just in case_”), and hurries for rescue. When Dashiell (who, in Lan’s understanding, is heavy artillery) comes, Lanier gives up on his four-year-old poker face and, with the two toddlers nestled on her laps, Dashiell turns into a silent viewer of a half-an-hour duet-wailing ‘opera’ that soaks her favourite t-shirt through with bitter tears and snot. She’s tried everything to soothe them, but all her attempts were useless and now she knows that the only option is to let them cry themselves into sleep.

Danny chaperoned the three of them from New York to Melbourne a little more than a week after the twins’ fourth birthday, on a private jet of a recently launched “O’Miller” Australian airline. Liam met them in Tullamarine Airport and brought to Wilson Prom. Thus, still on the high from their long-running birthday party, the boys embraced their trip as another adventure and week one in Millers’ mansion passed mostly under the motto ‘Let’s-spoil-our-grandchildren-we-haven’t-seen-for-almost-two-months’, with the twins getting another new birthday present every single day and being utterly spoiled by Cordelia and Lewis.

For week two Lanier and Dominic were joined by Sasha and Tristan, another couple of light-haired Miller grandsons. Liam brought them and left, and for the whole seven days, the mansion turned into a fortified castle, with grandparents and nannies alternating between hiding from a rambunctious quartet and trying to look after them, and with Dashiell doing her best to pretend to be invisible, hiding in a spacious wooden playhouse cabin that Liam built for all of them on the harbour beach a couple of years ago.

Week three started with the nine-year-olds tired and bored of the four-year-olds, and with the four-year-olds completely and utterly melancholic. Cordelia was forced to cancel all Dashiell’s classes, not even because of the upcoming holidays but because Lanier and Dominic had turned into Dashiell’s shadows, following her everywhere and sticking to her like two little baby-koalas. To the point that every attempt to hold them apart from her for longer than 30 minutes end up with an inescapable, sorrowful tantrum as if the world was about to end. They stopped laughing if she wasn’t around, would agree to eat only with her eating at the table with them and would not even get out of their beds in the morning if she was not there to wake them up with a kiss to their button-noses. Eventually, Cordelia, Mrs. Carson and Katy gave up on trying to do anything, and only Grandpa Lewis would grumble “For Christ sake, she’s only eleven herself” when scooping her into his huge arms and pressing her to his chest just like when she was only five, while the twins were napping in the afternoon…

She _is_ eleven. She _is_ tired. But she cannot blame them, honestly. A week ago Liam and Elsa stopped by for a couple of days. And first, her baby possums were really ecstatic to see them. But it turned out that even when you’re only four you’re getting tremendously upset when watching someone have something you just cannot have. And that was what happened to Lanier and Dominic as they watched their elder cousins having a great time with their parents – they were absolutely homesick and down in the mouth without realizing why. And then, as if that was not already enough for them, Lizbeth arrived four days ago. And that’s when Dashiell’s ‘night adventures’ started. Because Lizbeth looks almost like _her. _Lizbeth sounds almost like _her. _Lizbeth can playfully mess up your hair, or kiss your forehead, or hug you really-really tight, _almost_ like _her_... But Lizbeth doesn’t smell like _her_. Lizbeth doesn’t talk like _her_. And well, Lizbeth is just _not_ _her_.

Dashiell holds her breath, listens to the boys’ steady breathing, a quiet synchronous sniffing indicating they’re finally sound asleep. She shifts her weight, carefully turning herself out of Dominic’s grip. In their falling asleep she somehow managed to move them from her lap and to settle their heads on the pillows, which is honestly really surprising even for her, because together, the two of them outweight her easily.

She props up on her elbow to look at them. They’re so close she can feel the warmth of their exhales on her skin. Dom is sleeping on his side, with his thumb immediately in his mouth as soon as his little fist loses its hold on Dashiell’s t-shirt. Lanier’s cheek is pressed to his younger brother’s shoulder, eyes covered with a thick curtain of messy, honey-coloured bangs. Dashiell hovers her hand above the two sleeping figures, runs her fingers through Lanier’s shoulder-length hair and brushes his sticky-with-tears bangs off his fluffy, impossibly long eyelashes to the side, wondering why they didn’t cut them shorter yesterday when they had a chance. Dom takes a deep shuddering breath and mumbles something, frowning in his dream, and Dashiell’s hand shifts to his head, her fingers carefully tracing their way from the spot between his eyebrows and to the soft chalky-blonde edges of his brand-new ‘#3 haircut’, which less than 24-hours ago was not much shorter than his brother’s. She cocks her head, fingers of her free, propped on the elbow hand touching her own ‘#3’ that now perfectly matches Dom’s new hairstyle and a quiet chuckle escapes her mouth.

She remembers how yesterday morning Dominic ran to her wailing because Tristan had put a piece of gum in his hair. How Lizbeth took the boys and her to her favourite hair salon in the city. How, when the strands of Dominic’s platinum-blonde, almost-white hair were falling on his shoulders from under the blades of a clipper with Dominic himself weeping of resentment and bitterness, Dashiell grabbed another clipper from the table next to her, turned it on and just ran it through her own hair. How they stopped for waffles and ice-cream at Pagoto House in Chadstone centre and got that cute pyjamas-set in addition, and how, on their way back home, Dominic was grinning sheepishly, because now he was “twins with Dash and not with Lan”, and Lanier meanwhile was shedding tears because now he was “the only one with long hair” and he was “oh-so-sooooorry about their hair” but he “loves his hair and doesn’t want to cut it anyway”. How poor Cordelia almost had a severe heart attack when seeing Dominic’s short-cropped head and definitely had one when seeing Dashiell’s. And how grandpa Lewis was laughing boomingly, making jokes that now the two of them looked like the superhuman soldier-kids from some sci-fi post-apocalyptic movie, and that if their mothers were there, Lou would have been chortling next to him and Debbie would have been experiencing a heart attack together with Cordelia because the only dark-haired Miller-Ocean baby was almost bald now…

It hits without warning. Tears start burning in the back of her throat, her vision’s getting blurred, and she sits sharply in bed, hiding her face in the folds of a blanket, trying to stop the scream. It doesn’t help much, because the blanket and the pillowcase, and the sheets… Everything. Suddenly. Smells like _them._ And Dashiell pushes the blanket away angrily, frantically gasping for air, not being able to take even the shortest breath. Her lungs are bursting from the inside, heart hammering itself haphazardly into her delicate ribcage, stumbling yet with such a force that it might break her ribs eventually.

It is always like this. The pain of missing _them_ comes in waves, unexpectedly, and always under the cover of darkness. Her heart aches and longs deeply constantly, but in the afternoons she has two stubborn toddlers who diligently follow her every step and faces with the two pairs of so painfully familiar dark-chocolate and ocean-blue eyes… But when those eyes close after their owners’ mute ‘I-want-_them_’ hysteric, it’s suddenly getting way too much, way too heavy for her slender shoulders. And she starts suffocating; she drowns, spiraling and falling into the abyss with the waters closing above her head.

Every time she thinks of being apart from _them_ it always leaves her a little emptier afterwards. She misses _them_. She misses them so badly, it hurts so intolerably and it’s not getting easier no matter how hard she tries, no matter how much time passed.

Overcoming the numbness in her limbs, she moves to the edge of her mothers’ bed, quietly slides off the silk sheets and down to the floor. The room is frantically spinning around her and she tugs her knees to her chin and shuts her eyes as tight as she can in a futile attempt to stop it. Tears and sobs are still trying to get out, walls around are still slowly and inevitably closing on her, but at least now some air manages to seep into her lungs and she can finally take a half-decent breath.

“_Your mom was the strongest and the bravest person I ever met. But now when I think of it I know you’re one, too. Just like her in so many ways,” Debbie whispered into her ear, pressing her to her chest and stroking her messy-from-slumber hair. “Please Bumblebee, please, promise to take care of your baby-brothers. You’re their citadel, they need you._” Those were the last words her mama said to her. It seems now like aeons ago. 

Dashiell takes a deep painful breath. So, citadel it is.

Normally she would pull hard near the roots of her hair until the tears would burst from under her closed eyelids, but there’s nothing to pull now, right? She raises her arm to her face, her jaws clenching tightly on the soft skin a little under the shoulder joint. And even though it hurts like hell, it’s still better than the hurricane that rampages inside of her right now and it finally, finally brings her to reality. She’s gonna hide a bruised ugly bite-mark under a long-sleeve tomorrow and no one will ever even know, right?…

She drags herself up to her feet, crawls her way back to bed. Carefully, not to trouble the boys’ sleep, fixes the blanket around their small shoulders, turns off the night-light and nestles herself under the same huge blanket beside them. She misses the times when they smelled like milk and honey, but the scent of her own butterscotch shampoo on their warm skin is also soothing and dear.

“_I’m strong. I’m brave... I’m your… citadel. I.. love… you_,” whispers she with her lips pressed to Dominic’s forehead, her words stammering, her eyelids getting heavier, her breathing levelling and her small aching heart gradually calming down from its wearying race.

*** December 18th, 2023; 05:00AM / now**

She’s been quite a sensitive sleeper recently. And it’s probably the feeling of someone’s presence in the room that wakes her up. Or the clunk of the closing bedroom door. Or the thud of leather boots, landing heavily on the parquet floor, dropped right next to the carpet one by one. Or the clicking of the heels that move to the window before the heavy curtain is being pulled away just a little bit, letting the first dim sun rays inside. Well, whatever it is, when the weight on the mattress shifts and somebody nonchalantly lands on the farther edge of the huge bed, she is already awake for at least five heartbeats.

“Ugh… sooo fucking tire-… Oh shit... They _are_ here.”

“Wha-…? Where?” rustling of the clothes of the other voice’s owner quietens somewhere a little bit closer now.

“Honey, seriously? _Where_? In our bed, of course.”

“Pff… Really? _All_ of them?” 

A hushed up deep chuckle. “Yep. Aaaaall three possums.”

The hissing banter meant to be quiet is not so quiet at all and Dashiell is lucky that it’s already closer to the dawn when it might be thunder and lighting, and, honestly, even the world war 3 itself, but her brothers would keep on sleeping peacefully notwithstanding. When the clicking of stilettos subsides muted by the same fluffy carpet, giving out to the approaching of the second whisperer’s steps, Dashiell already slithers her way to the source of the sound at the foot of the bed, her heart trembling somewhere in her throat and her fingertips tingling with the tiniest electrical charges. So when the night lamp turns on, illuminating Debbie’s silhouette next to the night-stand, Dashiell finds herself kneeling half a meter from Lou’s sitting figure. Feeling the warmth radiating from her body. Sensing the intricate smell of vanilla and cedar, and nutmeg she would recognize anywhere. Gazes of the two absolutely similar sets of radiant-blues gravitate to each other immediately and the brightest and the most beautiful smile Dashiell would happily praise instead of all the sun shining in the world, enlightens Lou’s face.

“Hey,” her mother mouths, menthol-smelling exhale breezing Dashiell’s cheek in a matter of seconds. Lou’s hand instinctively stretches forwards, reaching to the top of Dashiell’s head and playing with the unfamiliar absence of her long auburn strands on it, and Dashiell’s brain short-circuits for a split second, excitement now circulating all over her body like electricity. Her heart is bursting from the inside, her stomach clenching and her brain trying to understand if that’s a reality or her consciousness is still playing its wicked games with her deep in slumber.

Lou’s palm cups her cheek, thumb tenderly stroking a relatively fresh scratch on her cheekbone (_someone had to get the twins’ kite from that tree, it’s not her fault it turned out to be so tall, right?_). Gentle fingertips continue their exploration, touching the edge of the girl’s nose, her pouted lips and sharpened chin, observant eyes following them and noticing any changes in her baby girl's body. Lou’s fingers trace the way too prominent curves of Dash’s collarbones (_she knows she should have eaten better, but she just felt sick with almost any food getting into her stomach_); ghost over the white jutting ‘CBGB’ print on the oversized black t-shirt (“Little thief” escapes from Lou’s mouth with an exhale and the edge of her lips twitches into a lopsided smirk); head down and freeze, her hand covering Dashiell’s that pinches on her opposite palm (_is she really, really, _really_ awake?_). Suddenly Lou’s grin fades, her eyebrows furrow and her hand jerks to Dashiell’s left forearm, thumb hesitating for a second and then carefully tracing the watch-face-shaped mark on her bicep (way too noticeable on the porcelain-white skin and way too big to be, by any chance, left by the teeth of any four-year-old).

“Bumblebee?” - There’s concern, misunderstanding and fear in her mother’s eyes and voice and it’s finally too hard to hold her tears anymore. Dashiell bites her bottom lip, which keeps trembling anyway, feeling how her breathing chokes and her cheeks get wet.

“It hurt too much,” leaves her lips with a barely suppressed sob and the way Lou winces, a pained expression distorting her beautiful face, tells her that Lou knows she doesn’t mean the bite.

“Oh _Bumblebee._” And Lou’s hands all at once pull her closer in one sharp motion, settling her on her lap, chest-to-chest, and clutching her in a tight embrace, and she feels small and weak, but finally safe for the first time in three weeks. Debbie appears just beside them as if out of the blue, her palm stroking soothing eights from the back of Dashiell’s head to her shoulder-blades, her lips pressing to Dashiell’s short-cut temple, and the smell of cedar and vanilla is instantly accompanied by bergamot, green tea and orange skin. Dashiell’s heart stutters and misses a beat, and she knows explicitly clear that even if she dies right here, right now she would still be the happiest child in the whole galaxy. The intrusive permanent buzzing of the external world with all the humans in it is less scary and much easier to confront and tolerate than it was when she was five or even seven, but she still feels panic from time to time, she’s still always lost, still always an alien there. And here, wrapped in her mothers’ embrace, she belongs; and she doesn’t need to grow up, doesn’t need to move, doesn’t need to breathe as long as she is squeezed in between them tightly, to the tantalizing pain deep in her bones.

Dashiell feels Lou’s heart beating with the bridge of her nose nuzzled into the pulse point under Lou’s chin. Seconds stretch into minutes or maybe even hours and into eternity, and she reluctantly leans back a little bit to see mom and mama’s faces when the thought occurs to her.

“But you are not supposed to be here yet. Like for _five_ _more_ days. We’ve been counting.”

Lou’s face is almost covered with the shadows of a half-dimmed room, but there’s glimmering in her eyes she would normally hide from any of her ‘possums’. Debbie places a warm kiss to Dashiell’s neck under her ear, then another one to her wet cheek, tugging her girls closer to herself and clutching them tightly. “It hurt too much,” she whispers with a sad smile and Dashiell’s eyes water again, and she knows for sure that it’s not about the bite…

“Mooooooms!” A high-pitched squeal suddenly cuts the quiet of the room and Dashiell rolls her eyes as their peaceful ideal of three is invaded by the two toddlers blatantly crashing into their embrace within the interval of thirty seconds.

“You’re supposed to be sleeping,” she growls quietly in a faked frustration, having hoped to get a little bit more precious time for herself. But as her body is being dragged into a giggling mess of her two mothers and two younger brothers, she finally feels whole and peaceful, and utterly happy. Even when the four-year-old’s heel pokes accidentally into her ribcage, knocking the wind out of her lungs. Even when the other four-year-old saddles her up, pressing her into the mattress with an excited scream. Even when, in not more than twenty minutes, she lies there with a tangle of small limbs sprawled over her side and her face, her back spooned into Debbie’s body, her cheek resting safely in Lou’s warm palm, and her consciousness fading, hushed by the quiet steady lullaby of four other breathings.

*** December 17th, 2023; 11AM (PHT Time Zone) / 16 hrs before now**

Debbie sprawls over the snow-white Charlotte Thomas bedsheets next to Lou with a self-righteous laugh, heart hammering in her chest and blood buzzing in her ears, rumbling over the sound of waves that comes from the outside through the wide-open panoramic windows. The Egyptian cotton is cool against her heated skin, the smell of their bodies keeps her half-drunk, half-intoxicated and she feels her lips stretch in a smug grin. She woke up an hour ago finding Lou’s tender sleeping form next to her irresistibly enchanting and attractive (in moments like this she still cannot believe this ethereal _perfect_ creature from another universe _belongs_ to _her_) and couldn’t resist kissing her closed velvet eyelids and slightly parted peachy-pinkish lips, and the sensitive spot behind her ear, and a graceful curve of her clavicles, and the soft porcelain skin between her breasts… Seemingly endless fluffy eyelashes fluttered, dazzling ocean-blue eyes were opening wider and wider with Debbie’s lips moving lower and lower and now, after minutes or hours of sharing skin and cries and every electrical impulse of their bodies, their breathings erratic, lips kiss-swollen, thoughts incoherent and disconnected from reality, they are both completely awake, slowly descending from heavens and back to Earth, sharing Lou’s necklaces as the only clothing for both of them.

The corners of her consciousness still slightly smudged, Debbie’s smile widens because to her astonishment and delight, Lou’s been uncharacteristically vocal. The Banwa Island belongs solely to them for the next five days and she finds herself already planning what other discoveries she can get from her wife during this short time.

She idly rolls to her side, nestling herself into Lou’s warm naked body and as she tangles their legs together her fingertips start drawing smooth patterns on the flat alabaster stomach, subtly gravitating to the constellation of characters on its lower area and triggering goosebumps on Lou’s skin every time she traces the lines of cursive ‘_D’_ and _‘d’_, and _‘ld’_ and _‘dl’_. She smiles subconsciously with a sweet memory of their discussion on how to mark a difference between Dashiell’s ‘d’ and Dominic’s ‘d’ and how they settled on adding the two letters for the boys’ names instead of Lou’s _brilliant_ suggestion of ‘d*’ or ‘d2’ for their younger son.

“I want you on every surface of this island,” she whispers mischievously, her lips finding the mark she left under Lou’s left collarbone some twenty minutes ago.

The absence of any reaction is the last thing she expects now, and she props herself on her elbow to look at Lou from a better angle.

“Baby?” Debbie utters louder this time, brows furrowed and brown eyes exploring Lou’s face, and when Lou, with her eyes hazy, only hums absentmindedly in response, a loud sigh escapes from Debbie’s lungs.

“Baby you’re not with me. _Again_.” There’s a hint of poorly hidden melancholy in her voice and she watches as Lou’s gaze switches instantly and returns from her inner world back to Debbie.

“I’m sorry,” Lou mumbles under her breath, her hand finding Debbie’s, bringing it to her lips and kissing every knuckle with a look of a guilty Alaskan Malamute puppy. Debbie releases her hand, runs her fingers through the strands of platinum-blonde hair, kisses her bare shoulder and pushes herself into a sitting position, shaking her head. It’s getting ridiculous. She cannot stand this anymore.

Leslie raised the subject at the twins’ birthday party and it was just a brief mentioning for the sake of conversation. But it sounded like a worthy idea, with a minimum risk and quite an impressive score in the outcome, and even Lou’s eyes lit up. They hadn’t done any decent job since Met. They hadn’t been spending time alone for more than a couple of days in a row since before the boys were born. Debbie’s fingers had been itching both to feel a thrill of _real_ work again and to have Lou for herself only. So, it was decided.

Dashiell was swearing they would be _fine_. Lanier and Dominic were squealing in anticipation of coming back to Australia to visit the rest of their family. So, three weeks ago they put their possum-gang on a plane to Melbourne with Danny and departed to Hong Kong with a stopover in Shanghai an hour later.

And it was fine. It was more than fine, actually. The job was going according to the plan, with her and Lou barely keeping their hands away from each other when working and not keeping them away at all at every available opportunity as if they were back in their twenties. Their sons were doing perfectly well, preoccupied with their cousins and a whole platoon of nannies including their doting grandparents. Cordelia (who even after four years is covertly jubilant that both twins are blonde-haired) was sending Lou photos every evening and they loved to watch how their marble, domestic, mollycoddle urban boys were running wild, turning into bronze-skinned, dodgy, boisterous little devils, peacefully greeting geckos, spiders and mice, barefoot overcoming stony paths in the fields and narrow trails in the forests, bravely handling all inevitable tropical calamities.

As for Bumblebee… Well, if Debbie’s honest, they never expected Bumblebee to be ‘perfectly well’ when being separated from them. Of course, there was significant progress in comparison with what it was like when she was five or even seven – they were an exquisite brat-team with her baby-brothers and her social circle was much wider now with all their huge family and their Met-squad and her teachers. But it is beyond any doubt that what happened to Lou when the twins were born left a mark on their family and on Dashiell especially. It’s been four years now but Debbie’s blood is still runs cold when she recalls that week when Lou was unconscious. And that month in total that they’d spent in the hospital. And those two more months that Lou had been regaining her ability to talk coherently and without stuttering, to walk without her knees trembling and to memorize the events of the previous day effortlessly and without any confusion. Dashiell had her meltdown on the first night they got home from the hospital, and after a week of never-ending nightmares, they basically moved her to their bedroom. The nightmares stopped and she never left Lou’s side during her recovery. There were days when Debbie was suffocating, being surrounded by their kids constantly and having the rare moments of privacy with her wife only when their progeny were slumbering. And there were days when Debbie was afraid that their blabbermouth daughter was too overwhelming and exhausting for Lou to handle her all the time. But at the end it turned out that Bumblebee, who was talking to Lou for hours, and reading to Lou her sophisticated bizarre books, and then demanding from Lou to explain to her all the definitions she could not possibly understand and things she was not supposed (and sometimes even allowed) to know at her seven years; Bumblebee, who was cheering for Lou 24/7, every second Lou was awake and when Debbie could not be there because she was busy with the twins - so small but so loyal and so brave Bumblebee doing all of that was one of the reasons Lou actually recovered so miraculously fast.

Eventually, they managed to find their rhythm, settled into their new routine, and Lou recovered completely. But that had thrown Dashiell’s progress one step back. She is still not quite good with strangers, still not completely herself whenever Lou and Debbie are absent for more than a day. And sometimes Debbie can read anxiety in her daughter’s eyes even when she simply loses sight of Lou or either of the boys in the mall… So yeah, her escapes to the beach play-cabin from the madhouse of Millers’ mansion with the arrival of Liam’s kids were some sort of her own weird ‘doing perfectly well’ for Dashiell…

Debbie loves their children. She loves them to death, to the pain deep in her guts and bones. She would have never thought there was something else programmed into her genetic code except for the art of the con and deception. But much to her own surprise, here they are and every morning she still cannot stop musing that those three grinning small copies of Lou, those profoundly perfect and whole creatures lounging across their bed are really _hers._ It makes her stomach turn how someone else’s happiness is excessively superior to her own now, even though she is by her nature an egoist and a cynic and has always been in a complicated relationship with happiness. Her love to them knows no limits and it finally comes naturally as if it’s always been there.

But at the same time, she knows that for Lou it’s something different. Their souls interact at an absolutely different level. Debbie doesn’t know if it comes with carrying them under Lou’s heart for nine months (Debbie still has this stupid deep-rooted fear they will stop loving her one day because she was not the one who gave birth to them) or with something else, but first, it seemed she would never grasp entirely what Lou was feeling to them. It’s only with a passing of time that she stopped being insecure and upset with her incomprehension and just accepted this as their reality. She is observant and she is smart, and with a child like Dash, she reads tons of psychology shit. So now she understands. For Lou, they are her fresh air on the edge of a cliff over the ocean. They are the first summer sunrays that warm her skin after a long winter night. They are a quiet symphony in the room that has been mute for weeks. They are a bite of milk chocolate melting on her tongue after months without food. They are what Lou was to Debbie after five years, eight months, and twelve days in jail. They are the quintessence of their love to each other and the purest form it could have possibly taken.

So, when Cordelia’s daily report at the beginning of week 3 stated that their normally cheerful and beaming four-year-olds started spending their days on the beach, shadowing and bugging their eleven-year-old and the two huge mastiffs that were looking after them, Lou, would be expected, lost interest in everything around her. To her credit, she _was_ concentrated on masterfully doing her part of the job, professionally and carefully tying all the loose ends. But her gaze clung on objects a little longer than it normally would, her long fingers fidgeted with her rings slightly more intensely than usual, her teeth bit the inside of her cheek without her even noticing, her smile faded on her beautiful face way too fast, her brows frowned with concern when she thought Debbie couldn’t see - Debbie didn’t need a translator to read all of that and, arriving at the island a couple of days ago after their job was finally over, she already had her doubts that they would be able to spend the time as good as planned. And she was right. Their physical contact seems to be the only grounding thing for Lou now, and whenever they lose it for more than a couple of minutes, whenever Lou is not distracted and occupied by Debbie, Lou’s mind starts wandering and Lou’s thoughts fly south, with so much longing and anguish in her crystal blue eyes that Debbie simply cannot tolerate it anymore. They’re getting further and further from each other, and Debbie misses her even though they’re sharing the space almost constantly.

She wraps herself in a bed-sheet, so huge that its edge follows her as the long train of a wedding dress when her feet touch the floor and she tiptoes towards the big walk-in-closet. She knows Lou is confused by the loss of contact, can hear her sitting in bed behind her. And when she opens the closet doors that hide their already packed suitcases, she turns on her heels to meet an absolutely adorable childish expression on Lou’s amused face. Lou stares at her speechlessly, her eyebrows raised under her bangs, sticking her tongue in her cheek.

“You didn’t…?” she finally spits after a long moment, cocking her head and looking at Debbie with an impossibly wide grin and unspoken question. And Debbie needs to glance away for a second because happiness and excitement in Lou’s eyes make them almost too bright to look into them. 

“I figured it’s time to go back. Our flight is tomorrow evening.” She grins back and has to cover her ears at once because of a loud high-pitched squeal. Debbie rolls her eyes in mock frustration: her woman turned fifty last month but that doesn’t stop her from functioning on the same frequency with the youngest members of their small brood.

She walks back to Lou, who stops jumping up and down, finally settling herself on the edge of the bed, and steps between her legs. “I missed them, too,” she whispers with a smile and brushes Lou’s messy bangs off her eyes to the side of her forehead when Lou nods her head passionately and beams up at her with so much love and adoration that Debbie’s heart clenches painfully and she catches her breath.

Debbie cups Lou’s face, places a soft kiss to her hairline and pushes her away instantly, lightly slapping her shoulder when Lou nibbles at her thumb, grinning. Lou’s chuckle is sincere and contagious. She tugs Debbie closer, wrapping her arms around Debbie’s hips and nuzzles her nose right under the place where her sternum ends and the edge of her ribs smoothly flows into the soft flesh of her stomach. “I love you,” she exhales against Debbie’s skin, and the next thing Debbie knows is Lou’s lips now brushing the curve of her breast and Lou’s hands squeezing her ass.

Debbie’s breath hitches. Lou is a needy tease and this way they will never leave their bed. But no matter how much Debbie appreciates the perspective, they haven’t eaten since yesterday evening and they need to if they want to have any energy for going on with Debbie’s planned explorations since their time together ends tomorrow. She bends down to meet Lou’s lips. “I love you more.” Leans away and reluctantly slips out of the captivating vertiginous warmth of Lou’s embrace.

“It’s time for breakfast. Get dressed,” she tosses over her shoulder on her way to the bathroom and hears a quite predictable and cheeky, “I thought you paid a fortune for this island to see me constantly naked, Ocean” in response. She smiles. Judging by the deepened sounding of Lou’s voice, she’s sprawled on her back in the middle of the bed again …

At least fifteen minutes pass, Debbie’s already out of the shower, brushing her teeth when Lou’s head appears around the doorframe. “Debs?” With the toothbrush still sticking out of her mouth, she shifts her attention to Lou, who hands Debbie her phone with a weird unreadable expression on her face. “Can we please leave _today_?”

Debbie’s gaze shifts down and she chokes on the toothpaste when a 6.5‑inch bright screen reveals to her a message from Lizbeth (_Lizbeth???_) <You better knit your possums hats for Christmas or they’ll freeze in New York> followed by a full-screen live-photo of their three offspring in Pagoto House: Lanier chortling while biting into a huge caramel-nougat-covered waffle, Dominic with pink and blue bubble-gum ice cream all-over his pouted ‘drama-queen’ face, Dashiell holding her favourite Oreo White Chocolate Cheesecake sundae with her brow quirked and eyes rolled at her brothers. Their usual ‘perfect harmony’ image. Except for the fact that the last two have short buzz cuts instead of the light-blond and light-chocolate manes they had, Debbie knows for sure, on their heads just yesterday. 

She wrinkles her nose, spits the rests of the toothpaste and takes a deep breath, nodding at Lou’s question.

“_Siri, call Nine Ball_.” Seems that their children still don’t give a damn about any of their plans. They _are_ leaving today after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> .sister.  
...  
i won't be tired to say "thank you" to the most wonderful @hope_savaria :)))) i am profoundly grateful to you not only for beta-ing my works, but, first and foremost, for being my first reader and always telling me the truth. it's a great honour for me every time (;  
...  
to our every single reader: if u're reading this, thank u for reading this. i know there's a huge digression form familiar 'loubbie' relationship and interaction in this chapter. it is very special to me, tho. because it's telling much more about lou and debbie's kids, who are, without any doubts, both their present and future, and some peculiar sort of reflection of their souls. and also because it's the very first time that my story is being told from bumblebee's pov.  
so, of course i hope u enjoyed reading it. and to be honest, i'm thrilled to hear ur thoughts and comments.  
hopefully, the next update won't take me so long :)))
> 
> stay safe!  
sending u love <3  
ur m. xo


	5. .futurum.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...Because they’ve always been pretty good at lying to themselves and to each other, but now they have three unadulterated mirrors, three blank slates, following them relentlessly, and those mirrors are not lying, showing everything: Lou’s feebleness, and Debbie’s weakness, and their mutual rancour. And how much time of their poor life they were spending on all that not-accepting-the-feelings shit of theirs...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here we go...  
>>>finish line>>> :)

Epilogue

*** February 18th, 2024 / 2 months from now **

The sun slowly settles somewhere behind her back, preparing to disappear for the night and covering the azure-sapphirine garment of the Bass Strait with a gradient veil of deep purple, orange, pink and peach shades. It’s been hot and humid today. She would even say it’s been one of the hottest days this summer, but the sun, steadily diving westwards in a duet with the breeze greeting from the north-east, are doing their job, and when her toes finally sink into the sand it’s already more chilling than burning like it was in the afternoon. According to Debbie’s calculations, intolerant of cold, just like Lou herself, Dashiell will start chattering her teeth in approximately about fifteen minutes, so she has been sent to the mansion to grab hoodies for the possums. Normally, the boys would be adamant (“_Maaaaama,_ _we’re not cold!_” chanted in unison as if rehearsed), but thankfully they are still deep into this ‘Asgardian brothers’ thing, so they will jump into their customized Thor/Loki armour-like hoodies without being asked twice.

The blinding rainbow sun-plashes jump all over the sea’s surface, reflecting as from a mirror and illuminating everything on the beach with the bright, saturated colours. The sight in front of her hasn’t changed since she left twenty minutes ago, except perhaps Lanier’s wild locks that are now weaved into two tidy braids (with his siblings’ hair still quite short, the poor mate is the only one who suffers when Debbie is manic with boredom). Notwithstanding, the lighting has changed for sure and now, illuminated by both direct sunlight and the sun rays reflected from the water, the giggling running figures of their children on the far side of the beach seem to be glowing from the inside. She squints into the light and smiles, watching as the twins’ little feet sink in the sand while they’re trying and failing to catch their sister. Their number is their constant benefit, but of course, the girl is as fast as the wind and as elusive as a ghost: she lets them approach and almost grab the edge of her (_Lou’s_) over-sized white Marvel t-shirt, but jerks away in the very last moment, their little fingers grasping nothing but air and their sonorous chortle echoing across the beach all over again.

All of a sudden, Lou’s breath hitches and she stops dead, her heart taken into a gallop with an abrupt sickening feeling of de-ja-vu. She’s already seen this exact vision before. Not yesterday when they were greeting the sunset on the same beach, and not a week or a month ago. She saw this vision in her dream the night their twins were born. In her dream where nobody could hear her. In her dream where she died. Only several hours before she almost died _for_ _real_ on the surgical table, under the vivid projectors of the operating room. All the action in front of her slows down and almost freezes; the noise of her blood pounding in her ears replaces the sound of her kids’ laughter, her lungs start burning from the inside and she takes a deep sharp breath, trying to even her heart rate and to suppress the lump growing in her throat.

“Hey.” The hoodies slip out of her hands and fall to the sand as Debbie tugs on them, and Lou feels Debbie’s arms sliding over her ribcage and circling around her chest and waist. “You’ve been thinking so loud I could hear you from over there,” Debbie whispers, planting a trail of open-mouth kisses from the cavity between Lou’s collarbones, up her neck and over her jaw to the corner of her lips.

Lou blinks once, twice, kisses back still slightly absently, slowly pulling herself back to her senses. Her eyes shift from Debbie’s face, focusing on the round tapestry blanket abandoned in the middle of the beach ten meters from them, and she frowns, realizing she had been so deep in her head that Debbie managed to approach her unnoticed. She presses her lips to Debbie’s temple, her gaze returning automatically to the small figures still twinkling at a distance like three sunbeams. Debbie follows her line of sight, then cups her sharp jaw with one hand, turning it to connect their lips again. Her tongue follows the shape of Lou’s bottom lip and when she sucks it into her mouth, Lou parts her lips, letting Debbie in. They both break the kiss only about a nano-second before either of them might crumble on the sand killed by asphyxia, but Debbie’s lips are still brushing against hers.

“Lou.” Debbie leans away just a little bit and looks Lou dead in the eye as if trying to read her thoughts. “You know that _everything_ is behind us, don’t you? _You_ _are_ safe. _We_ are safe. And we can hear you even if the whole world starts buzzing simultaneously.” Lou’s lips start trembling and Debbie’s hand slides up and cradles the back of Lou’s neck. “Just in case you foolishly forget; I’m never _not_ hearing you.” Debbie’s lips trace her skin and she feels them curl into a smile against her cheekbone before they move to the spot behind her ear. “And I swear, Miller, those three little rotters are tuned to hear your voice permanently, by default, even when it’s _the last_ thing you want.”

The chuckle that Lou huffs is only partially intentional, every nerve, every muscle of her body still taut like a string. She tightens her grip around Debbie’s shoulders, nuzzles her face into Debbie’s hair and heaves a deep shaking sigh, leaning into the warmth of Debbie’s body. The feeling of Debbie’s fingers tugging on the short hair at the nape of her neck, the smell of Debbie’s skin, the sensation of Debbie’s teeth sinking even so lightly into her earlobe, - all these are Lou’s threads to reality, Lou’s grounding anchor. She feels her heart crashing violently against her rib cage, almost crushing it to get closer to Debbie, but slowing down eventually to match Debbie’s heart rate. Debbie’s body replicating the curves of her own is solid and soothing, Debbie’s palm pressed to the small of her back under the fabric of her linen shirt - soft and real. Lou feels tension and fear seep out of her, releasing the space for the familiar soppy feeling that vibrates through each cell in her body every so often when she intentionally drowns herself in Debbie’s embrace.

Debbie pulls back slightly to lean her forehead into Lou’s. “Are we okay?” She exhales and her breath tickles Lou’s kiss-swollen lips, and a sudden whiff from the sea dishevels Lou’s already tousled hair. 

Lou chews the inside of her cheek, gives a silent but confident nod, and when Debbie sneaks out of her hug, picking up the pieces of kids’ clothes from the sand, Lou’s body jerks after her immediately, by impulse, even before Debbie’s hand closes on her wrist and tugs her towards the water. Lou smirks and almost rolls her eyes at herself: this need to be in close proximity to Debbie’s body has turned into a conditioned reflex over the years – she yearns for her even more than her lungs yearn for oxygen.

Debbie lands airily on the blanket, tugging her feet under herself and Lou, much more relaxed now, belly-flops besides, propping herself on her elbows and resting her chin on her entwined hands above Debbie’s lap to watch her wife’s every move. How she opens a bright-yellow lunch-box, methodically getting out three similar containers marked with various stickers – sandwiches she made for the possums before they left for the beach: whole-wheat, vegemite and goat cheese for Bumblebee; crusts-cut-off, Nutella-vegemite for Lanier; slightly grilled, peanut-butter and currant jam for Dominic _(“I swear, Deborah, this particular baby is planted!” – “Don’t be dramatic, I can’t eat this vegemite-stuff either” – “But you are _not_ Australian!”_). How she adds to the ensemble of sandwiches three bottles of liquid, - flat water, orange and strawberry juices, - different for each possum, and fishes up three identical green apples (the only items Lou wouldn’t confuse whose is whose). Hands-sanitizer, a package of wet-wipes, another package of Kleenex tissues. The snack for their kids has been prepared as meticulously as a casino-heist, and Lou tilts her head back and beams at Debbie, receiving a bright smile and a soft peck above her eyebrow as an instant reward.

.............

_“She’s doing really good, isn’t she?” Dashiell mumbled quietly, tearing her already-drowsy eyes away from a book. Lou followed her gaze, lowered her head to look at Debbie’s sleeping form, and hummed in response. Lou was settled in the nest of pillows supporting her lower back against the headboard, with Bumblebee curled under her arm with “The Tibetan Book of Living And Dying” on her knees on the one side, and Debbie shuffled into her chest, their legs tangled together, on the other. They were four weeks through Lou’s rehabilitation after the hospital and as the only decently functioning mama of the twin-neonates, Debbie was crashing into a death-like slumber at every opportunity. _

_“You know, she was ready to go after you. I mean, if you had stopped fighting. If you had decided, you know, to… _die_.” Dashiell threw this casually, matter-of-factly, stumbling only on the ending, when putting the book aside onto the nightstand and wiggling under Lou’s arm to snuggle into Lou’s chest; Lou was blinking at her for several long moments with a look of complete incomprehension. Only when Dashiell’s tiny body finally stilled and her head nuzzled under Lou’s chin, the meaning of her words finally struck Lou, and she winced, feeling the mixture of pain and anger bubbling in her chest, accelerating her heart rate to 200 in a blink of an eye. _

_“Don’t be angry with her.” Dashiell huffed almost inaudibly, sensing the drastic shift in Lou’s mood, seeing Lou’s increasing heart beating through her chest. Viscerally attuned to Lou’s thoughts, she was conscious of the reasons of Lou’s growing fury, was fully understanding that fortunately, in her case Lou had been exceptionally lucky to get a ‘royal flush’, but had Lou gotten a ‘full house’ or even ‘four of a kind’ instead then Dashiell and her brothers would have been _orphaned_ with a mere flick of Debbie’s shattered wrist. And yet, Dashiell wasn’t angry._

_Lou tilted her head to kiss the tip of a freckled nose and to look into her daughter’s bottomless eyes. Dashiell gave her a knowing smile in return and this smile lit the room. _

_“_Don’t_ be angry,” she reiterated, sprawled her small palm over Lou’s sternum, right over the place where her heart was excoriating her chest; right besides Debbie’s sleeping face. “It’s not the fault of the Ocean that it cannot exist without the Water. But with the Water…” Her little finger touched and tenderly stroked the bridge of Debbie’s nose. “…with the Water the Ocean is doing really good.” _

.............

“You’re doing really good, you know?” Lou’s fingers roll the hem of Debbie’s coral white, flower-patterned sundress up to place a kiss above her knee. “Sooooo_ good_…”

“I kn-,” Debbie starts with a grin but when Lou’s lips move to the inside of her thigh, nibbling on her tanned skin, Debbie cuts herself, covering her mouth with a back of her hand to suppress a moan that already vibrates in her lungs. Lou kisses her way further, heading towards Debbie’s centre, savouring every inch of her way with every touch of her lips. Blood is beating again in her ears, this time for another reason, but Debbie’s other hand that fists hair on the back of her neck in a ‘don't-you-dare-stop’ gesture, suddenly unclenches its grip and gives Lou’s shoulder a trembling tap – a signal of an approaching thunderstorm. Despite rapidly increasing arousal that makes her mind hazier and limbs heavier, Lou pushes herself up into a sitting position almost immediately. With a corner of her eye, she sees for herself that the thunderstorm is approaching indeed, and she knows better than anyone that it’s safer to face it feeling the ground under herself.

She turns her head to connect her eyes with the darkened brown ones. Debbie’s chest rises and falls heavily and Lou’s gaze shifts from her flushed cheeks to her mouth. “You _want_ me” (not a_ question, _a_ statement_) she whispers, sticking the tongue in her cheek and smiles wickedly as Debbie looks away, licking her lips. It’s a split second and Debbie’s slightly unfocused gaze gravitates back to Lou like in a slow-motion, and Lou watches mesmerized as Debbie’s lips mouth a countdown. “_Three. Two. One._”

A soft warm, shirtless body crashes into her at full speed, shrieking and giggling unstoppably. He is at ease, not afraid she wouldn’t be able to hold him, the knowledge that she is strong and can protect him as a default configuration in the settings of his universe. His small arms hug her around the neck tightly and she tilts her head to the side, right in time to see how another bare-tummy little person approaches them walking backwards and, when his back finally touches Debbie’s extended supportive hand, carefully, much more delicately than his elder brother, settles on Debbie’s lap, enveloping himself into her arms.

“Mommy!” – “Mama!” – “Help!” – “She is coming!” – “You need to save us from her!” – “Mom!” – “Save us from her!” – “Mama” – “He-…” – “Hee-ee-elp!”

They only have two little boys, but the rumble and cacophony of squeals and laughter produced by them simultaneously make Lou’s ears ring as if there’s the whole Kelly gang here and she’s seriously worried she won’t be able to hear for at least two days if Lanier yells another “Mommy” right into her left ear.

It’s simple with the boys. Much simpler than it was with Dash. They’re playful and light-hearted, gentle and easy-going, friendly and amiable. The two constantly wriggling-running-giggling balls of joyfulness. Yes, they have as much energy as Dashiell had, but at least they split it between themselves, and Lou doesn’t have to cope with every full-scale hurricane alone anymore. Also, they have a whole list of the highest importance tasks on their mind: to spring over the waves, to explore crab holes, to build sandcastles, to try to ride their grandparents’ mastiffs, to bug their elder sister, to race the tiny flamboyant ‘hot-wheels’, which Dashiell buys for them with her pocket money every time they get the chance to make it into the mall. They bump mouths with their mothers’ cheeks, too busy smiling to kiss them properly, and run towards adventures, taking breaks only to lunch hastily and to let restless Debbie wash half the beach off them (off their hair! noses! ears!).

“Easy tiger.” Debbie scoops the squealing Dominic closer to her chest and he wraps his hand around her thumb just like he did when he was four-months-old. “_Who_ is coming?”

Lanier whirls on Lou’s lap sharply, almost clocking Lou in the jaw and points his index finger in the direction of slowly approaching Dashiell. “Mommy, it’s _Hela_. Hela is coming for us!”

That. Is. Something. New. Debbie suppresses a chuckle. Lou rolls her eyes.

Dashiell’s steps are confident and gracious, though. Hela she _is_. And she _is_ coming for them.

Lou blinks at her for a second, admiring how easily their clumsy gawky baby-girl has transformed her posture and her body language into a small version of the ‘goddess of death’. Lou’s heart clenches and skips a beat: she’s growing up _too fast_, isn’t she? Please, please Bumblebee, stop for a second…

Dashiell tosses a villainous smile at her, Lou gives her a conspiratorial wink and tightens her grip around the boy in her arms.

“We captured them for you, your Majesty,” she pronounces ceremonially with an ostentatious admiration in her voice, and in one instant, the eldest of the twins is pinned down to the blanket with ‘Hela’ hovering over him formidably and blowing raspberries on his tummy.

Kicking and screaming, with the help of Dominic who comes to his rescue, hanging on Dashiell’s neck, Lanier breaks free and the two little possums run ahead, the clamour of their resonating laughter following them to the far side of the beach.

Dashiell crashes on her side, rolls to her back with a loud sigh of the Commander of the legions of Asgard who got through the dogs and the quicksand. Debbie stretches her legs and Dashiell lifts her head to rest it on her mama’s lap, while her bare lanky shins mechanically draw up to rest on Lou’s lap.

“Gosh, I could eat an elephant right now. _Your_ kids are draining all the energy out of me.”

“It was _you_ who wanted them!” Debbie scoffs with a quirked brow and Lou observes how, nevertheless, just like that, their daughter’s hands are immediately being sterilized and wiped dry, and how a personalized snack is being retrieved from its container with a neon-green sticker and placed in Dashiell’s hands. The girl gnaws off half the sandwich with the first bite and her smug grin doesn’t dissipate even as she chews with her mouth full and cheeks chubby. Lou smirks at her with poorly hidden adoration, reaches out her hand and wipes the cheese crumb from the corner of her mouth with her thumb. One day this has-just-been-performing-Hela creature (undoubtedly - the daughter of her mothers), who already has the almighty Deborah Ocean wrapped around her little finger, will quite likely bring the world to its knees literally. But at the moment she is again just their shiny-shiny girl, their stubborn-as-a-mule tomboy, enjoying her ‘five-to-ten’ minutes of freedom from her ever-present brothers. Their pivotal mission, _the_ most exquisite job Debbie and she have ever completed, in all her glory, sprawled nonchalantly over her mothers.

Debbie’s hand finds Lou’s on the blanket and squeezes it. Lou turns her head, their gazes lock and when Debbie smiles at her knowingly, she feels tears pricking behind her eyes. Soulmates aren’t only lovers, are they?

.............

_ Well, it’s just that it turned out that to love means not to fondle and not to bath in presents, and not even to extol like they usually did. It turned out that it is to serve humbly and to overcome the underworld that is deployed in Lou’s chest daily from six in the morning. It is to listen (and was Debbie even capable of listening?) to someone else but those morbid sirens in their heads. It is to fight with Debbie’s pride, with her titanium perfectionism that has replaced her basic trust in the world and in the flow of events; with Lou’s whole-forged don’t-give-a-fuck-ness, with her fury - because when she’s furious everyone is scared of her, and that’s, to be honest, quite convenient - but the possums, if she’s screaming, only snuggle tighter to her in fear, because there’s no one else in the world to snuggle to. It is to do everything they’ve never loved and have always been ridiculing, because now they’ll have to live long and safe, unlike how they expected in their early twenties. Because now their kids will find out what’s funny and what’s beautiful, and what’s no-good, from the look on hers and Debbie’ faces. Because they’ve always been pretty good at lying to themselves and to each other, but now they have three unadulterated mirrors, three blank slates, following them relentlessly, and those mirrors are not lying, showing everything: Lou’s feebleness, and Debbie’s weakness, and their mutual rancour. And how much time of their poor life they were spending on all that not-accepting-the-feelings shit of theirs. To love, as it turned out, is to toil extremely hard, to work, to start before dawn and with no excuses. They were not just not prepared for this, they wouldn’t even start if not for those three pairs of thoughtful, love-filled eyes. It turned out that reciprocity is more complicated than non-reciprocity – and now they’re both praying to be worthy of at least one-tenth of all that indisputable trust and adoration; and of how their possums forgive them royally-sweet: easily, happily, immediately…_

__________________

They are pillowed in their bed, both still hot and slightly out of breath, blurred corners of the world around them reforming their lucidity. The midnight breeze, pleasurably cool against heated skin, permeates tall wide-open windows, bringing the salty-acerbic smell of the ocean with it. Debbie is nuzzled into Lou’s side, her bent leg leaning over Lou’s, her dark-haired head resting on her shoulder and a slender arm draped over her waist. Lou inhales the smell of Debbie’s hair, weightlessly runs her hand over Debbie’s back, fingers drawing random invisible patterns. Debbie shivers and Lou feels goosebumps under her fingertips.

“Hey. Kiss me.”

Debbie props herself up on an elbow, leans over Lou’s body, their naked breasts brushing against each other, and freezes, keeping her lips mere millimetres from Lou’s. “And what is this for?” Lou can feel the warmth of her breathing as she exhales the words and it sends thousands of tiny electrical prickles to the tips of her fingers and toes.

Lou narrows her eyes in mischief, lips pressed in a wide grin. “Because I’ve finished reading today. And if someone wants to get feedback from one of the most notorious Australian literature critiques, you _have _to kiss me.”

.............

_When they woke up in the morning the day they returned from their prematurely completed ‘business’ trip/belated honeymoon, with the jumble of three little bodies slumbering safely between them, Debbie uttered calmly but firmly, “We can’t leave them for this long again,” with a tone and look that were telling Lou this was premeditated thoroughly and Debbie was dead-serious. “We take a hiatus. No more long-term, big jobs. Not until they are _all_ ready to tolerate our absence. We can’t risk interrupting the peace in their world just because their mothers cannot be normal human beings.” _

_No, they couldn’t. Lou knew Debbie, though. Knew it was not her fault that jobs were her second nature, embossed into her DNA under the notice ‘default life vocation, _is not a subject to alteration_’. And Lou loved Debbie enormously, and she didn’t want to watch her wife slowly going nuts while her benevolent desire to make them happy was making her profoundly unhappy herself. Deborah Ocean - Deborah _Miller_-Ocean - was an obscure masterpiece and Lou had no intention to let her colours fade. So, the idea that popped up in Lou’s mind seemed to be not the worst alternative. “If you can’t stop your brain from generating schemes and plans, why don’t you start writing them down?”_

_They decided against coming back home right after Christmas, opting to spend a couple more months in Australia. Officially because the water and nature here worked for the possums much better than New York; non-officially because thanks to Lou’s parents in the mansion and the occasional visits of Debbie’s mother, this was the only way for them to have some semblance of a seaside vacation with child-free afternoon hours and an additional child-free Monday option included. So, Debbie started writing. With her usual 6 AM wake-ups, she had at least three hours after her morning run and shower every day, while Lou and their children would be dead to the world until at least 10 in the morning (well, Lanier would sleepwalk to her at 7:30, but it’s not like a little monkey, napping and sniffing into your shoulder between your chest and your desk with the laptop is an obstacle, is it?) And a couple of days ago, Lou discovered the first several chapters of Debbie’s manuscript on her nightstand, dropped there casually while Lou was in the shower._

Lou feels the soft and warm weight of Debbie’s body pressed against her own as Debbie shortens the distance left between them. “Oh well.” A kiss; Debbie still tastes like the chocolate cookie Dominic generously shared with her before bed and Lou smiles. “Please, Mrs. Miller-Ocean.” A soft bite on her lower lip. “_The most_ honourable literature critique in Australia.” Another kiss, deeper and hungrier. A break for air. “Would you please.” Tongue swiping across Lou’s kiss-swollen lips. “…please announce your verdict?”

Lou’s deep moan vibrates through her chest and escapes her lungs, muffled against Debbie’s mouth. Already panting, she has to take a deep breath and let it out slowly, her fingers flexing and sinking into the soft flesh of Debbie’s waist. Sometimes it’s really irritating how little control she has over own her body when it comes to Debbie.

Lou moves her hands and cups Debbie’s face, tucks one of the dark-chocolate strands behind her ear, gives her another ardent kiss, which Debbie reciprocates eagerly. Then pulls away to look into the brown, almost-black eyes. Lou sees a thoroughly covered uncertainty and anticipation, and imperceptible to the not-knowing eye sparkles – the same that dance there every time Debbie tells her about a new job. Despite the darkness of the room Debbie’s bottomless eyes somehow glimmer with myriads of stars and constellations like two immense universes. _Her_ personal universes. So. Fucking. Beautiful.

“Well, Mrs. Miller-Ocean, my reputation speaks for itself and before I tell you anything I want to make it clear that, under no circumstances should my opinion be question-…” Debbie pinches Lou’s waist impatiently, and Lou interrupts her rant, arching her brow.

“Sorry, sorry, go on.”

“ – so, my enormous experience tells me… that this is going to be the best heist-novel ever written!”

Debbie grins at her with the smile of an excited child and their mouths connect again, evoking a wave of warmth in Lou’s chest.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought! A virtuoso is a virtuoso!” She slides down, shuffles herself back into Lou’s side, this time covering them both with a huge weightless duvet when Lou shivers, already missing the warmth of her body. Lou yawns, clutches Debbie even closer to herself, kisses the top of her head and murmurs approvingly when Debbie reciprocates the kiss, her lips pressing to Lou’s sternum right above her beating heart.

Debbie’s chest rises and falls steadily against her own, Lou feels her eyelids getting heavier, consciousness blurring and fading, but before her eyes close completely, she remembers something else.

“Honey?”

“Mm-hmm?”

“I would refrain from letting Bumblebee read the polished-up instruction of a hypothetical to-be the next biggest heist in history.”

Debbie tenses. “Explain?”

“She didn’t get any cars for the boys yesterday…”

“…yeah?”

“She didn’t get them _in front of us_. This morning I saw them playing with two new ones. And they are different, some expensive collection shit.”

Debbie shifts a little, rests her palm on the bare skin of Lou’s solar plexus. “Go on.”

“She seized the opportunity when the boys were throwing a tantrum about those particular cars and sneaked them from the shelf under our noses. She didn’t pay for them, Debs. And for fucks sake, she used the four-year-olds as a fence!”

Lou feels as the corners of Debbie’s mouth twitch in a smile against her skin with a barely audible “_Good._” breathed out against it. She rolls her eyes, huffs a laugh and sighs against Debbie’s hair. That’s so _them_, isn’t it? A never-ending turmoil. They have one criminal mastermind, which is already too much for a normal family. But no, what’s the fun in that, right? Now Debbie will be writing this book (and another one, and then another one, and so on…) not to distract herself, but to prepare a collection of tutorials for their little girl. And they will end up raising one more bamboozle-wunderkind, a true menace to the royals of the modern thief’s world. Sounds much more invigorating now, right? Lou tilts her face to press her lips to Debbie’s hairline and leaves them this way. She might bet Debbie’s already run at least ten different scenarios in that unceasingly restless head of hers. And what else she might bet is that Debbie is getting personal, not considering the quite possible conflict of interests: on hiatus or not, Debbie Ocean _is_ the reigning empress among con-artists, and she doesn’t tolerate competition; if anything, neither does their daughter, however.

Lou feels sleep tugging on the corners of her consciousness, feels the borders of reality blurring. Already at dream’s door, she sees the vision of five-year-old Dashiell, sitting cross-legged on the floor of their New York old loft as a small Buddha; a handful of Toussaint jewels are shining in her open palms, reflecting in her bemused, radiant-blue eyes with the myriads of stars and constellations – iridescent and bizarre in the daytime sky, yet the same Lou sees in the night of Debbie’s eyes. “_Bumblebee,_” Lou whispers barely audibly in her vision, but Dashiell _hears_ her, raises her head and the lopsided insidious smile that curves her lips is totally Lou’s own credit, with the ‘made by Lou’ label, and Lou smiles, pulled into the dream completely. Oh yes, that’s their girl. And, just like her mothers, she _will_ slay.

_*** A curtain!_

**the End**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> .future.  
…  
well-well, that’s it…
> 
> first and foremost, my dearest @hope_savaria ! extraordinarily talented writer and absolutely magnificent human being! i can’t be grateful enough (and you know i'm grateful enormously) for your help and support with this work. thank you, thank you, thank you!  
…  
amazing people who were reading this story! i am sorry! i am really-really sorry for all this nonsense (lol).  
i finish it here right now. i would love to keep telling you their story. however, i'm back to college for summer semester and, from my experience, i already know what’s gonna happen: acting and writing would start playing tug-of-war in my life; acting would be winning and i would be feeling guilty for abandoning my beloved characters (the last time poor dashiell was forced to spend a month sitting on the edge of her bed, her bare feet on the cold floor). of course, in the process, ‘someone’ (being an insufferable stubborn mule) might become impatient, throwing an over-dramatic tantrum in my head in a desire to come out, though i don’t promise anything (lol)…  
…  
thank you for reading!  
thrilled to read your comments!  
stay safe!  
___________________________  
ur m. xo


End file.
